In Our View: Word <i>illegal</i> is key to issue

November 23, 2007 01:42 pm

— Oklahoma may be exporting its tough anti-illegal immigration law to other states. Certainly, it could serve as a model for those states weary of waiting for Congress to clamp off the streams of illegal aliens crossing the U.S. border.
Critics have called the new law racist and excessive.
But the bottom line is that it would make Oklahoma unfriendly territory for those who illegally enter the United States and try to get work.
Under the law, an illegal immigrant is not allowed to hold a job or to sign up for public benefits. And those people or businesses that transport or harbor those in the country illegally could suffer severe penalties.
A number of lawsuits reportedly have been filed challenging the law as unfair and its constitutionality has not yet been tested. But a federal court has dismissed a lawsuit based largely on the issue of fairness to immigrants.
It has been estimated that Oklahoma has 100,000 illegal immigrants that the cost of education and other services for them runs about $200 million annually.
The key word in the law is not immigration, but rather “illegal.” Those who cross the border and stay illegally in this country make a travesty of legal immigration process. They simply force themselves to the head to the line for entry by sneaking through border areas, and then making their residences and taking jobs in places where detection is less likely.
It would be interesting to know just how many billions of U.S. dollars illegal immigrants are siphoning from the economy by sending money to the relatives and friends in other countries.
Such laws as Oklahoma’s would be unnecessary if the United States either fully enforced existing laws or if Congress got tougher on employers who provide jobs to those here illegally. Harsh penalties for those employing illegal immigrants, such as hefty fines running into the millions dollars for each offense and jail time for supervisors and executives, would dry up those jobs.
We’re not anti-immigration. If Congress and an administration want to expand the legal immigration rolls, fine. But the nation must put a stopper on the flow of illegal immigrants.