BY M. SCOTT CARTER
THE JOURNAL RECORD

OKLAHOMA CITY – Despite the claims by some state lawmakers, immigrants in Oklahoma – both documented and undocumented – make substantial contributions to the economy, are not solely responsible for an increase in crime and did not, as one legislator suggested, cause the demise of a major retail center in central Oklahoma City, several studies show.
With the debate raging over the state’s latest anti-immigration legislation, some Oklahoma legislators have suggested that illegal immigrants bring a host of problems – both social and economic – with them when they come to Oklahoma.
Those claims have been used to buttress the need for additional legislation – often called Arizona-plus legislation – to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the state.
In a speech Monday at Oklahoma City University, Republican state Sen. Ralph Shortey claimed illegal immigrants were largely responsible for the economic and social deterioration in his south Oklahoma City neighborhood.
“I grew up in south Oklahoma City,” said Shortey. “What we have seen in south Oklahoma City is tremendous change. We’ve seen a cultural shift and an economic shift, but the people have remained the same. We have a lot of people that have retired. We’ve seen Capitol Hill High School go from its glory in the old days to where it is now – which is not where it was.”
Shortey pointed to an influx of illegal immigrants as the reason behind those problems.
“People have seen their property values deteriorate; they have seen crime rates go through the roof and they have seen gang activity,” he said.
However, several studies – including a report commissioned by the Oklahoma Bankers Association, the University of Georgia and data from the U.S. Census Bureau – paint a much different picture of the state’s legal and illegal immigrant population.
In fact, one study predicted the state would lose hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity should all the undocumented workers be removed.
“If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Oklahoma, the state would lose $580.3 million in economic activity, $257.8 million in gross state product, and approximately 4,680 jobs, even accounting for adequate market adjustment time,” a report by the Perryman Group noted.
Further, the report noted, “evidence suggests that undocumented workers pay far more in overall taxes than they receive in benefits from various governments.”
A 2008 study commissioned by the Oklahoma Bankers Association underscored those claims.
Produced by the Economic Impact Group of Edmond, the OBA study said the state could see economic losses of about $1.8 billion if 50,000 members of the state’s foreign-born population were forced to leave.
“If one-half (roughly 50,000 people) of all the state’s immigrant labor force was removed, Oklahoma’s economy would be reduced by 1.32 percent in the short run – a reduction of nearly $1.8 billion relative to 2006 production levels,” the OBA study noted.
Real estate experts also refuted Shortey’s claim that illegal aliens were responsible for the demise of Crossroads Mall in Oklahoma City.
During his speech at OCU – and at an earlier forum sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and the Institute for Justice in Journalism – Shortey pointed to the state’s illegal immigrant population as the primary reason for the demise of Crossroads Mall.
“As a kid I used to go to Crossroads Mall,” he said. “I went there all the time and felt safe. As you know, now, that mall is gone. The economic impact of illegal immigration has taken its toll on south Oklahoma City.”
However, the real reason behind the death of Crossroads Mall, real estate analyst Darren Currin said, was economic trends and not illegal immigrants.
“It was a combination of several factors,” Currin said. “A perfect storm of problems if you will.”
Currin said the biggest factor was a 10-year trend by merchants seeking open-air power spaces. “Merchants such as JCPenney were moving toward open-air spaces,” he said. “That’s why they moved from Crossroads to Moore. They’re following the demographics to the south and west.”
And those areas, Currin said, show the largest economic growth.
Currin said factors that contributed to the mall’s problems included long-term construction delays near the mall’s entrances, the difficulty in accessing the mall and problems involving its operation.
“Crime really wasn’t a big issue,” he said. “Any mall is going to draw some criminal activity. But Crossroads’ big problems were caused by other factors.”
Shortey also claimed illegal immigrants were causing businesses to leave the state.
“In the meantime, we have to pay the bill,” he said. “In the meantime, we have businesses that are leaving the state because they cannot compete with an illegal workforce. In the meantime, we are losing millions, hundreds of millions that are being wire-transferred to Mexico. We are losing hundreds of millions of dollars in income tax. We’re losing hundreds of millions in the amount of money that we are having to pay for health care and things like that.”
However, a 2009 study from the University of Georgia said Latino immigrants were responsible for billions of dollars in purchasing power.
According to the Selig Center for Economic Growth, the 2009 purchasing power of Oklahoma’s Latino population totaled $5.8 billion – an increase of more than 708 percent since 1990. A 2002 study by the U.S. Census Bureau noted the state’s 5,442 Latino-owned businesses had sales and receipts of $1.1 billion and employed 8,161 people in 2002, the last year for which data is available.
Shortey said his goal was simple: send a message to the Oklahoma’s illegal immigrants that the state didn’t want them.
“I’m trying to do things to tell illegal immigrants don’t come to our state,” he said. “Go someplace.”

Tulsa World, March 7, 2011

NORMAN – States are passing immigration laws, even laws outside the scope of their authority, because federal lawmakers have not tackled the issue, according to a panel of national advocates Monday. Leaders from groups advocating for different solutions to immigration regulation spoke at the Immigration in the Heartland Conference at the University of Oklahoma to groups of students and journalists….

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110308_11_A1_CUTLIN946666

The Oklahoman, March 7, 2011

People on both sides of the immigration debate agreed on one thing at the Heartland Conference held at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma in Norman on Monday: Federal inaction is behind state efforts to write new immigration laws….
Read more: http://newsok.com/oklahoma-conference-debates-federal-state-immigration-policy/article/3546803#ixzz1GEEk1pSq

Tulsa World, March 7, 2011

In the flurry of state legislation proposed to discourage illegal immigration, one appears to have momentum for becoming law, which has drawn concerns from advocates for immigrants.

Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee, proposed House Bill 1446 with language pulled from previously filed bills and from legislation passed in Arizona. The measure was approved last week by the House Judiciary Committee and is awaiting for action on the House floor.

Immigration reform in Oklahoma is being handled a bit differently than when the controversial House Bill 1804 passed in 2007…

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110307_11_A1_Ihlryo165451

During 10 years in the U.S. Army, Luis Lopez served in Iraq and Afghanistan, won medals and had a commander laud his service as a “critical part of the success of his unit fighting the global war on terrorism.”

Mr. Lopez is also an illegal immigrant. In late December, the staff sergeant was discharged from the Army after applying for U.S. citizenship. And because of his illegal status, the 28-year-old native of Mexico couldn’t work as he waited for immigration authorities to decide if he would be granted citizenship or find himself at risk of deportation.

Mr. Lopez’s case reflects the federal government’s complex—and seemingly inconsistent—relationship with illegal immigrants in the armed forces. Illegal immigrants aren’t allowed to voluntarily enlist for active duty. Yet if they find a way to join, a section of the Immigration and Naturalization Act provides them a path to citizenship….

The 1952 immigration law says foreign nationals who have “served honorably” during wartime may be naturalized “whether or not [they have been] lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence.”

That statute drew attention in December when Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) referred to it ahead of the defeat in Congress of the Dream Act, part of which would give some illegal immigrants a legal status that would enable them to enlist and eventually gain citizenship.

The Dream Act isn’t needed, he wrote, because “there is already a legal process in place for illegal aliens to obtain U.S. citizenship through military service.”

The 1952 law has allowed some illegal immigrants in the military to become U.S. citizens, though how many isn’t clear. And citizenship isn’t guaranteed: It can turn on decisions made deep within the military bureaucracy.

Pfc. Juan Escalante of Seattle joined the Army using a fake green card and fought in Iraq. In 2003, Pfc. Escalante confessed that he had used fraudulent documents. The military allowed him to stay, and the U.S. gave him citizenship.

In her four years in the Air Force, Liliana Plata of Los Angeles won medals and promotions. In 2008, she was discharged after the military discovered she used another person’s identity to enlist. In December 2010, U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services denied her application for citizenship. A spokeswoman said the agency cannot comment on individual cases.

Between September 2001 and September 2010, 64,643 members of the armed forces were naturalized by the agency. The agency doesn’t track how many came to the U.S. illegally.

The military supports the Dream Act, and military officials say more stringent scrutiny of identification has made it difficult for illegal immigrants to enlist in recent years. “We don’t knowingly allow illegal immigrants to enlist,” said George Wright, an Army spokesman.

But immigration attorneys say the practice is widespread, in part because of the lure of citizenship.

“Fraud enlistments are pretty common, and the government can deal with this in many ways. If they don’t want to discharge, there are a dozen ways to look the other way,” said John Quinn, an immigration attorney in San Diego who was previously involved in processing fraud enlistments for the Marines.

Luis Lopez was 8 years old when his parents brought him to the U.S. from Mexico in 1990. They overstayed their tourist visas and fell out of legal status.

Mr. Lopez says he visited an Army recruitment office in suburban Los Angeles to enlist after finishing high school. The recruiter said he couldn’t join unless until he presented a green card or birth certificate, says Mr. Lopez.

A few weeks later, Mr. Lopez says he gave the recruiter a fake “birth abstract” that stated he was born in Los Angeles County. “That was it,” he said. “I went straight to Korea for a year.”

He was also deployed to Iraq twice and then to Afghanistan, from early 2009 to 2010. He collected more than a dozen accolades for his service. The paratrooper’s latest Army commendation medal was awarded for his service in Afghanistan, where he was section chief for an airborne field artillery battalion’s radar system that tracked incoming enemy fire.

Mr. Lopez says after returning to his base in Fort Richardson, Alaska, last summer he informed his supervisors that he was an illegal immigrant and was taking steps to apply for citizenship. He continued to report to work on the base.

In August, he began filling out immigration forms to rectify his status. One form required the personnel department on the base to attest that Mr. Lopez was serving “honorably,” to qualify him for citizenship.

Sharon Harris, chief of the division, raised questions over the fact he had presented a counterfeit document to enlist, says Mr. Lopez. In September, Ms. Harris checked the “No” box beside the statement, “Applicant served honorably or is currently serving honorably.”

In response to emailed questions, an Army spokesman wrote that Ms. Harris had checked “No” because Sgt. Lopez had “fraudulently enlisted.”

The Army initiated procedures to discharge him.

On Dec. 22, Mr. Lopez received his official discharge form, which states he was discharged due to “fraudulent entry.” Still, the form described his service as “honorable.” Mr. Lopez then submitted a copy of the form to immigration officials.

Mr. Lopez’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Frank Stanco, provided a recommendation letter for the immigration agency stating, “I strongly recommend that SSG Lopez [be] awarded United States Citizenship for his commitment and service to the United States of America.”

Mr. Lopez heard nothing about his application for citizenship until about 10 days after The Wall Street Journal put questions to immigration authorities. Late Thursday, his lawyer, Neil O’Donnell, received word that Mr. Lopez would be granted citizenship. He took part in a naturalization ceremony Wednesday.

Mr. Lopez could now try to re-enlist in the Army. After his ordeal, he said: “I’m still thinking about it.”

Write to Miriam Jordan at miriam.jordan@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704570104576124091336851306.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

When state Rep. Miguel Garcia was a teenager in the `60s, he stepped into a small New Mexico diner to order a hamburger and fries. At the entrance he saw a placard, “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed,” but was too hungry to think much of it.“ `I’m sorry, we don’t serve Mexicans,’ the waitress told me,” Garcia said. “ `Well, I’m not Mexican, I’m Spanish,’ ” Garcia replied to the woman, who then agreed to serve him.
The anecdote prompted laughter from the dozens of people who gathered at the Capitol Rotunda to listen to at least a dozen lawmakers speak against Gov. Susana Martinez’s executive order that directs state law enforcement officers to question an arrestees immigration status.

Read more….

http://www.cibolabeacon.com/articles/2011/02/08/news/doc4d50844e29b45596084414.txt

With the debate over immigration raging across the country, 15 journalists have been selected to take part in a fellowship program that challenges reporters to go beyond familiar sound bites and instead cover the complexities of immigration with depth and context.The program, Immigration in the Heartland, is being conducted by the Institute for Justice and Journalism (IJJ) in partnership with the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication and its Institute for Research and Training. It is funded by a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

The program opens March 5, featuring discussions with experts, field reporting andprofessional workshops at OU in Norman and in Oklahoma City. Issues to be explored include education, labor and immigration law. Speakers with contrasting views on immigration will make presentations on the pros and cons of existing and proposed state legislation. Oklahoma in 2007 passed HB 1804, one of the nation’s strictest laws against illegal immigrants. A number of states, including Oklahoma, are now considering legislation patterned after Arizona’s controversial SB 1070.

On March 9, the fellowship program moves to Dallas for discussions on the economic effects of immigration and for reporting from federal immigration courts. Officials of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also will provide a briefing for the Fellows.

The selected journalists, from print, broadcast and online reporting sites, are:

• Michael Baker, senior staff writer, The Oklahoman
• Maria Bastidas, associate editor, Mundo Hispanico newspaper, Atlanta
• Jason Buch, reporter, San Antonio Express-News
• M. Scott Carter, Capitol bureau reporter, The Journal Record, Oklahoma City
• Rachel Cernansky, freelancer, Boulder, Colo.
• Diana Correa, executive producer, Hispanic Information & Telecommunications Network, New York
• Jaclyn Cosgrove, investigative reporter, Oklahoma Watch
• Rebekah Cowell, freelance contributor, Independent Weekly, Durham, N.C.
• Ralph De La Cruz, blogger and reporter, Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
• Sarah Gustavus, reporter, KUNM (NPR-affiliated station), Albuquerque
• Alex Kellogg, national correspondent, NPR Washington Bureau
• Jens Krogstad, reporter, Des Moines Register
• Kari Lydersen, freelancer, Chicago
• Sandra Martinez, reporter, The Santa Fe New Mexican and editor of La Voz section
• Teresa Puente, blogger and assistant professor, Columbia College Chicago

Six OU journalism students will audit sessions and write stories on immigration issues under the direction of Warren Vieth, a visiting professor at Gaylord College. They are Graham Brewer, Logan Layden, LeighAnne Manwarren, Ricky Maranon, Melissa Morgan and Whitney Ortega.

The March fellowship conference follows a successful launch of the Heartland program last April. Sessions this year also will include:

• Training in the use of online databases, such as TRAC, to more effectively produce immigration-related stories.
• Exploration of the demographic changes and impacts brought on by immigration.
• Field reporting in Oklahoma City to assess the influence of national immigration policy and state law on education and the labor market.
• A session focusing on Oklahoma’s Sharia law, passed in 2010, and other issues involving Muslims in the United States.
• An educational program at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, site of the 1995 Murrah Federal Building bombing. The attack was carried out by a U.S.-born terrorist, but the event helped spur congressional action in 1996 that restricted immigration.

Each Fellow will produce an in-depth project story or a series of shorter stories about immigration. In addition to use on the Fellow’s designated outlet, the completed work will be featured on IJJ’s website (http://www.justnews.org) and the Heartland site.

Vieth, an IJJ Senior Fellow, serves as program, director. The program’s faculty includes five other IJJ Senior Fellows: Daniel Kowalski, an immigration attorney who is editor-in-chief of Bender’s Immigration Bulletin; Martha Mendoza, national writer for the Associated Press; Julio César Ortiz, a reporter at KMEX-TV Univision 34 in Los Angeles; Dianne Solís, a senior writer at the Dallas Morning News, and Frank O. Sotomayor, a former L.A. Times editor.

Also on the faculty will be Steve Montiel, IJJ board president, and Sharon Rosenhause, board secretary. Rosenhause, former managing editor of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, will lead a session on journalism ethics and immigration coverage.

OU’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, in Norman, Okla., offers course work in three main focus areas: journalism, media arts and strategic communication.
The Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation was established by Edith Kinney Gaylord to support projects designed to improve the quality and ethical standards of journalism. It is based in Oklahoma City.

The Institute for Justice and Journalism, based in Oakland, Calif., supports in-depth reporting and commentary through professional development fellowships and workshops.

IJJ is an independent 501(c)3 organization, building on nine years of affiliation with the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California.  Its website provides reporting resources to strengthen journalism about justice issues.

For additional information, please contact: Warren Vieth, wvieth@ou.edu or Frank Sotomayor, frank.sotomayor@sbcglobal.net.

Jan. 31, 2001

The New Mexican

Gov. Susana Martinez’s executive order authorizing state police officers to inquire about the immigration status of a person arrested on a criminal charge has fueled debate across the state….

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Martinez-s-immigration-order-stirs-heated-debate#

The Garden City Telegram

Most all of the world is a place where parts of wholes are described. This understanding of our world has pushed me incessantly to make sense of these fragments. As a journalist, I’m asked every day to piece many of these parts together. While some days the pieces dovetail perfectly; other days, I am left senseless by their chaotic jumble.

It’s that chaotic jumble that I’ve come to recognize is shared by many of my newest neighbors where I now live and work. When I first moved to Garden City, Kansas, (pop. ~40,000) to write and report for The Garden City Telegram, I was struck not only by the vibrancy of the otherwise-isolated rural community but by its rich cultural and ethnic diversity, too. Southwest Kansas is no stranger to outsiders: Mexican migrants began moving to the area to work at sugar beet factories more than a century ago. Then, during the 1970s and 1980s, waves of southeast Asian immigrants – often referred to by locals as the “boat people” – began settling in the area.

But more recently, during the last five years, the region has seen an incredible influx of secondary refugees, the majority of them Somalis and Burmese, hundreds of whom have moved from urban areas to work at one of four beef-packing plants that exist within a 75-mile radius in this corner of the state.  In turn, local teachers say Kansas classrooms have gotten more crowded with a wider and more diverse array of faces; area social service organizations have told me they are scrambling (often unsuccessfully) to find translators who can both speak foreign languages and are culturally competent; and locals in their exercise gear sometimes stare in awe at the Somali women exercising in full Islamic garb at the local gym, unsure of what to make of the unusual scene.

But no one seems scared or frightened or upset. Why not? I wondered. I’m an American, and I’m having a hard time adjusting to this new home. How hard it must be for a refugee from another land who does not know English and (in most cases) practices a different religion! But Garden City has seen newcomers before and has always welcomed them, people (teachers to city councilors to journalists to social workers) kept telling me. And so these new residents will assimilate and integrate in the end as well. You’ll see, they said.

With these thoughts in mind, I began with this mission: I must get to know these new people so intimately that I can tell their immigration stories to our readers, most of them Caucasian and Hispanic or Latino Americans and a majority of them elderly, as well. Strictly from a humanitarian perspective, it is important to know and understand who your neighbors are, I thought, and if I don’t help them tell their stories, who will? I began building a rapport with those leaders in both Somali and Burmese communities that I had met through a local group called the Coalition of Ethnic Minority Leaders, an organization effort spearheaded by a chaplain at the local Tyson beef-packing plant. Those were the guys that knew English the best and that I could lean on for support as I worked on my project. After getting to know them intimately, they welcomed me into their homes and the homes of others. I met with many, many families, each with a story of struggle: from their refugee camps to making a new home in America while meat-packing for a living. I struggled with how to tell these stories and how to show what impact these newest residents were having on the community. In the end, I decided the best way to do so was to break each story or struggle down and retell it through the eyes of one family or group of people representing on ethnic community. And then to give a picture of how this family or community fit into the larger picture: a changing and rapidly diversifying Midwest.

One of the biggest obstacles I faced along the process was making my intentions known to the people who shared their stories openly. I had to reiterate time and again that I wasn’t there to help them, not in the sense that a social worker or other person helps them with financial hardship or other physical challenges, but to fill my role as a journalist and share stories that might share a sense of the circumstances Garden City’s newest residents have faced and now face. I think it took many of my sources (especially in the Burmese communities) some time to understand why I was there and what I was there to do. (This also proved difficult, because it meant I had to make many visits before I could muster up enough courage to ask photographers to tag along with me. I didn’t think families would be comfortable with more than one stranger in their homes at a time, not at first anyway.) In the beginning there were also countless times sources would ask me for help in ways that I did not feel comfortable doing. Some examples include help filling out forms they needed to take to the doctor or immigration offices, help to teach their elder sons or daughters English so they could do better in school, etc. Of course, with time they came to understand why I was there. But it took some time because they saw me in a role of authority and became confused about my presence at first.

I’ve been a cops/courts reporter and then a local government reporter, but during my two-year tenure at the Telegram it’s the burgeoning refugee communities I’ve most intimately come to know, thanks in part to the IJJ. It’s their stories, struggles and their triumphs that I’ve tried to understand and retell, as I – along with them – aim to make sense of our new home in southwest Kansas.

There’s no doubt I would not have been able to dedicate so much time and energy to the project without the assistance of the IJJ. The fellowship experience gave me the tools and resources I needed to understand the complexities of writing and reporting on such a bipolarizing topic as our nation’s immigration system and the players involved within, from the federal defense lawyer to the asylum-seeking refugee. But beyond educational, the fellowship experience was incredibly empowering, as well. I felt privileged to be a part of a group of such dedicated journalists. To future IJJ Fellows, the best piece of advice I can offer is to not be afraid to ask for help or guidance along the way, either from their own staff or from the IJJ crew. The other reporters provide invaluable advice and support during the fellowship and their experiences – coupled with the IJJ Senior Fellows’ expertise – are absolutely priceless resources. In hindsight, I wish I had leaned more on my fellow fellows and senior fellows for support – now it seems foolish that I did not!

Here also are a few of the couple of comments from our online readers. Unfortunately, we don’t get as many hits as we’d like, thus there are fewer comments from our readers than I would have hoped. That said, researchers and professors from Kansas universities and workers from non-profit-type groups in neighboring communities in Kansas and Colorado often contact me trying to get in touch with many of the people I’ve mentioned in these and subsequent stories.

• Farah Hanaf (a source from the first story) said to me after the story’s publication that he enjoyed it immensely and thanked me for helping his community offering a glimpse into their for the rest of Garden City residents.
• “Refugee population: I moved from Garden City a year ago and so miss the wonderful diversity of this multicultural city!! I read the Telegram online each day and thanks for these great stories!!” – online reader
• “I can relate to this posting. I’ve been in the beef processing for a good many years. Here at http://www.backtobasics-homestead.com we live a self sufficient life and have for years. Also our homestead is profitable. I enjoyed your post. Thanks” – online reader
• “Well written, able to see you did your research and really connected with the people!” – online reader