The Oklahoma House of Representatives approved a bill last week that would give police the power to arrest illegal immigrants for “impermissible occupation,” becoming the latest state to try to plug gaps President Biden has opened in the country’s border defenses.
The legislation, which still needs approval of the Senate and governor, would slap a misdemeanor charge on anyone who entered the U.S. without permission of federal authorities and then made their way to Oklahoma. Repeat offenders could earn a felony charge.
“The failure of the federal government to address this issue, and the lack of leadership by the Biden administration, has turned every state into a border state,” House Speaker Charles McCall, a Republican, said after shepherding the legislation through his chamber.
In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a similar law earlier this month, doling out misdemeanor charges to migrants who have already been denied admission, previously deported, or are defying a deportation order. Migrants with certain criminal records can face felony charges.
She too said the feds have abandoned the field, forcing her state to step up.
In Missouri, Attorney General Andrew Bailey fired off a letter last week to the mayor of Kansas City telling him that his sanctuary city-style comments declaring his city welcoming to migrants could trigger the state’s law making it a felony to knowingly transport an illegal immigrant.
“Your statements are wildly irresponsible,” Mr. Bailey wrote to Mayor Quinton Lucas.
The states are following the lead of Texas, where the state enacted a law carrying misdemeanor and felony penalties for a migrant who enters the state without having been admitted to the country by federal authorities.
Three years into the Biden administration, GOP-led states continue to be the chief opponents of Mr. Biden’s immigration policies, rushing to stiffen interior enforcement and plug gaps at the border.
Andrew “Art” Arthur, a former immigration judge who is now with the Center for Immigration Studies, said Congress has failed to prod the administration, leaving few other actors on the stage other than the states, who have good reason to take action.
“The states have now been left to deal with the costs and the problems associated with the migrant surge,” he said. “Each of these states is feeling increased housing costs, increased education costs and increased health care costs, not to mention the strain it puts on the social safety net and the demand for public services.”
Take public schools. Since the start of fiscal 2021, some 400,000 illegal immigrant children who arrived at the border without parents have been placed into American communities. That’s in addition to hundreds of thousands more children who came with families.
Schools didn’t plan for them, and they are a bigger drain than other students on average because of their usual need for intensive assistance to learn English.
States are moving to plug gaps not just at the border but also in federal courtrooms, where the Biden administration is trying to abandon its own get-tough asylum policy, which was intended to discourage bogus claims.
Justice Department lawyers, after mounting a stiff defense of the law, made a stunning reversal and told courts earlier this year that they were now in settlement talks with the immigrant rights groups who had sued.
Kansas and Alabama are leading a coalition of states asking courts for permission to step in and defend the asylum policy in place of the federal government.
“Unfortunately, the States cannot rely on President Biden … to defend and enforce the Nation’s immigration laws,” the GOP-led states argued in their filing with one of the courts.
The Biden administration has told the states to butt out.
Immigrant rights advocates also fume at the states’ attempts to get involved.
In Iowa, Marshalltown Police Chief Michael W. Tupper, co-chair of the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, complained about Ms. Reynolds’ new law.
“The problems at the southern border cannot be solved from Des Moines, Iowa,” the chief said. “Playing politics with public safety never helps public safety. This law will make the job of law enforcement more difficult.”