November 06, 2007
Memo From Mexico (About Oklahoma),
By
Allan Wall
Oklahoma’s H.B. 1804 And The Clerics Trying To Subvert It
One of the most
encouraging recent developments on the patriotic
immigration reform front: state,
county and
local governments cracking down on illegal
immigration.
Somebody needs to.
The latest law—said by
some to be the toughest yet—has just come into effect in
my home state, Oklahoma. It’s the famous/infamous H.B.
1804, the
Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizenship Protection Act of 2007,
authored by state legislator
Randy Terrill, who was interviewed on the Terry
Anderson show on November 4th.
H.B. 1804 really cracks
down on illegal aliens. It prohibits them from getting
driver’s licenses or
specific government benefits. It prohibits the
sheltering and transport of illegal aliens.
It allows the local
police to enforce immigration law. That doesn’t mean
that
Oklahoma police are going to be going door to door
ferreting out illegals. But if a policeman, in the
normal course of his duties, detains an individual
for a
felony or
drunk driving, the lawman is authorized to check the
detainee’s immigration status, and, if illegal, to
contact immigration authorities.
Of course, this is still
milder than Mexican immigration law. Here,
policemen are absolutely required to enforce immigration
law. But, in many ways, the U.S. still has a ways to
go before it matches up to Mexico.
H.B. 1804 was already
having an effect months before it came into force
November 1st. Directly after the law’s passage, it
scared thousands of illegal aliens, euphemistically
called "Hispanics" in the Mainstream Media [MSM],
into
leaving Oklahoma—some for
greener pastures in the U.S., some for Mexico.
This effect is confirmed
by what I’ve also picked up on the grapevine here in
Mexico.
A middle-class friend of
ours said her middle class brother, an
illegal alien in Oklahoma, was coming back to Mexico
because of 1804.
Plus my Mexican
sister-in-law in Oklahoma is
legal,
speaks
English and isn’t committing crimes, so she’s not
afraid of 1804. But an
illegal alien acquaintance of hers said she was
planning to move to another (U.S.) state because of it.
All before the law took
effect.
People who want open
borders anyway say things like "You
can’t deport 20 million people so you
have to have an amnesty." But a law like this
can scare aliens into self-deporting.
If a law can scare
people into doing the right thing, isn’t that better for
everybody?
It still remains to be
seen how 1804 will be implemented statewide, throughout
Oklahoma’s 77 counties. Some police forces downplay it,
some may not cooperate, and funding may be a problem.
But Tulsa County is
already a step ahead. According to an article in the
Oklahoma media,
"Tulsa County is the
only county in the state that has a partnership with
Immigration, Customs and Enforcement to track the
immigration status of people arrested for crimes,
Undersheriff Brian Edwards said. ICE agents are at the
county jail and assist with deportation proceedings
for illegal immigrants
jailed for crimes. The county has been checking
immigration status since June, Edwards said. Thirty
Tulsa County deputies have been trained to aid in
immigration enforcement…"
[Officers
see few changes from law,
NewsOK.com, By Ron Jackson and Julie Bisbee,
November 3, 2007]
Tulsa County is leading
the way, and hopefully more counties will follow its
example. In the meantime, 1804 is the law for the entire
state.
Unsurprisingly, the law
is also under legal attack—heretofore unsuccessful.
One of the arguments
against the law is that it will split up families. [Hundreds
protest new law,
By Angel Riggs,
Tulsa World,
November 2, 2007]
But nothing in
Oklahoma’s new law
prevents these families from being united
in Mexico.
And it’s just
another good reason to plug up that
insane anchor baby loophole—pronto!
Public opposition to
1804 has been spearheaded by religious groups, both
Roman Catholic and
Protestant.
The Oklahoma Catholic
Church opposes the law, and even before it took effect,
promised to disobey it. [Church
Resists Anti-Immigration Law - Oklahoma City News Story
- KOCO Oklahoma City
(Full disclosure: Back
in 1990, I was briefly employed by Catholic Social
Services, imparting an
English/Civics class to Mexicans amnestied in
1986. I was instructed not to answer any questions
about immigration status. That was before I moved to
Mexico and
became an immigration reform patriot.)
On the Protestant side,
a national organization called CONLAMIC (National
Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders) [Email
them] is fighting the
law and still engaged in legal action against it.
What kind of a group is
CONLAMIC?
Its
platform indicates that it supports a social
conservative agenda but also pushes for amnesty and
Hispanic identity politics.
But its
public activism
indicates the group is more interested in agitating for
amnesty and against enforcement of the law than in
opposing abortion and gay marriage.
As I’ve stated before,
just because Hispanic activists are
Protestants doesn’t mean they support U.S.
immigration law.
Some of the biggest
subverters of the law are
Hispanic Evangelical pastors.
Miguel Rivera, leader
of CONLAMIC flew in from New Jersey to fight against the
H.B. 1804, assisted by Oklahoma Hispanic pastor Victor
Orta.
In
this photo you can see
both playing their dramatic roles at a press conference:
Miguel Rivera with his disgusted, indignant look, and
Orta with an angry expression.
These guys are just
incensed that the state of Oklahoma would have the gall
to enforce the law.
In regards to the
portion of 1804 that prohibits the transport of illegal
aliens, Rivera defiantly promised that
"We are going to
continue transporting our fellow Latinos no matter their
status."
When Rivera says such
things, he’s not
speaking as an American citizen. Nor is he speaking
as a Christian leader.
No, when he says that he
speaks as a
Latino activist, a
chauvinist whose loyalty is not to the laws of the
United States of America, but to his own ethnic group.
When Hispanic
leaders—including
clergymen—continue to talk like this, is it any
wonder
many doubt assimilation is taking place?
Miguel Rivera had these
harsh words to say to Oklahoma:
"You are guilty of
ethnic cleansing in this community. You are going
against my community. That’s
my people, my Latino friends and family, who aren’t
afraid of your words, who aren’t afraid of your
actions."[Lou
Dobbs Transcript,
November 1, 2007]
Well, thanks for
clearing that up, "Pastor" Rivera. "Your
community" is not the
United States of America then, is it? Your community
is "your Latino friends and family" and you don’t
care what U.S. law is. You’re utilizing
your position as a clergyman to subvert our law.
On the CONLAMIC website,
Rivera even has the gall to
say that "Faith obliges us to defy the laws of
man, and obey the law of God. The Latin Christian Church
is the only refuge that our people have at this time."[La
Fe nos obligara a desafiar las leyes de los hombres, y
obedecer la Ley de Dios.
La Iglesia
Latina Cristiana es el único refugio que
nuestra gente tiene en esta hora.]
Bunk. There really
are people in the world today who
suffer for the Christian faith.
But illegal aliens scared the U.S. might actually
enforce its law do not fit into that category.
On the bright side, all
this anti-1804 rhetoric being spewed by Rivera and other
activists indicates that they are worried. They are
worried that the U.S. might begin enforcing the law
again. Why do you think they flew Rivera in from
New Jersey to lambast a bunch of
Okies?
Because they fear H.B.
1804 will be successful—and be a model to other states.
Bravo to Representative
Terrill and all the other Oklahomans who fought for this
law.
You make this Okie in
Mexico proud of our state. Keep up the good work.
American citizen Allan Wall (
email
him) resides in Mexico, with a
legal permit issued him by the Mexican government. Allan
recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with the
Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are
archived
here; his FRONTPAGEMAG.COM
articles are archived
here his "Dispatches from
Iraq" are archived
here his website is
here.
