University of Tulsa College of Law TU Law Digital Commons Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works 2009 The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act: Blowing Off tS eam or Setting Wildfires? Elizabeth McCormick [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.utulsa.edu/fac_pub Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation 23 Geo. Immigr. L. J. 293 (2009). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by TU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works by an authorized administrator of TU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE OKLAHOMA TAXPAYER AND CITIZEN PROTECTION ACT: BLOWING OFF STEAM OR SETTING WILDFIRES? ELIZABETH MCCORMICK* ABSTRACT This article considers Oklahoma's recent experiment in immigration regulation and examines how it is that Oklahoma has found itself on the front lines of the illegal immigration debate. The article begins with a discussion of the rich history of immigration to and immigrants in Oklahoma. It then attempts to unpack the evolution of Oklahoma's illegal immigration crisis and understand the genesis and the impacts of the state's comprehensive but perhaps exaggerated response to the perceived crisis. Finally, using Oklaho- ma's experience as an example, the article argues that a "steam valve" model of immigration federalism is no longer an apt description of sub-federal immigration lawmaking. Rather than allowing states to blow off their anti-immigrant steam, this article argues that allowing individual states to enact immigration control measures locally provides a dangerous mechanism for national anti-immigrant groups to accomplish through a state-by-state lobbying effort what they have been unable to achieve at the national level. Instead of acting as a steam valve, H.B. 1804 provides the match to ignite a growing wildfire of restrictive state legislation that puts pressure on the immigrant community and the federal legislature at the same time. PART I. INTRODUCTION ........................ ...... 294 PART II. THE PATH TO H.B. 1804: THE HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION TO OKLAHOMA .............................. 300 A. The New Immigration Frontier .............. 300 B. Migration to Oklahoma: Indians,Boomers, Soon- ers and Other Pioneers .................... 304 * Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, University of Tulsa College of Law. I am grateful for many helpful comments and suggestions on early drafts, discussions, and presentations of this paper, and especially thank Hiroshi Motomura, Michael Scaperlanda, Michael Olivas, and participants in the 2008 Immigration Professors Workshop at the University of Miami for their feedback. Special thanks also to Lyn Entzeroth for her support on this project. Finally, I am grateful to the University of Tulsa College of Law for very generous research support for this project and to Elizabeth Shelton for her excellent research assistance. © 2009, Elizabeth McCormick. GEORGETOWN IMMIGRATION LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 23:293. C. Mexican Immigration to Oklahoma ........... 311 PART Ill. UNPACKING H.B. 1804: THE EVOLUTION OF OKLAHOMA'S ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRISIS .................... 317 A. Oklahoma Post-IRCA ..................... 317 B. Post-9/11 Treatment of Oklahoma Immigrants... 323 1. FederalImmigration Regulation .......... 323 2. State and Local Efforts ................. 330 PART IV. WILDFIRE OR STEAM VALVE?-EXAMINING THE IMPACT OF H.B. 1804 IN OKLAHOMA AND BEYOND ........... 340 A. Oklahoma is Burning: Life After H.B. 1804 ..... 340 B. Tulsa's Immigration Crucible ............... 349 C. Oklahoma'sExperience With Immigration Regula- tion: Making The Case Against Steam- Valve Fed- eralism ............................... 351 PART V. CONCLUSION ................................... 362 Lots offolks back East, they say, is leavin 'home every day, Beatin 'the hot old dusty way to the California line. 'Cross the desert sands they roll, gettin'out of that old dust bowl, They think they're goin' to a sugar bowl, but here's what they find- Now, the police at the port of entry say, "You're numberfourteen thousandfor today." Oh, if you ain't got the do re mi, folks, you ain't got the do re mi, Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee. California is a garden of Eden, a paradiseto live in or see; But believe it or not, you won'tfind it so hot If you ain't got the do re mi. -Do Re Mi, Woody Guthrie (1937) PART I. INTRODUCTION In 1937, Oklahoma native Woody Guthrie wrote this ballad recounting the experience of hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing the Dust Bowl and economic depression of Oklahoma and other states to seek work and a better in life in California.' Beginning in the early 1930s and over the course of the 1. WOODY GUtHRmE, Do Re Mi, on DUST BowL BALLADS (Victor Records 1940). 2009] OKLAHOMA TAXPAYER AND CITIZEN PROTECTION ACT next decade, millions of families fled poverty and destitution in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and New Mexico, in search of better employment opportunities, many of them ending up in southern California. 2 These indigent newcomers to California were blamed for over- whelming the state's existing welfare system and increasing competition for low-paying jobs in a state with an already high jobless rate. 3 "Lumped together as 'Okies,' they were the butt of derogatory jokes and the focus of political campaigns in which candidates made them the scapegoats for a shattered economy. They were accused of 'shiftlessness,' 'lack of ambition,' 'school overcrowding' and 'stealing jobs' from native Californians."' As part of an effort to discourage migration from Oklahoma and other Dust Bowl states, "many states maintained tough vagrancy laws and required many years of residence of those applying for public assistance," but California was especially hostile to these poor newcomers. 5 In 1936, Los Angeles Police Chief James Edgar Davis set up a border patrol consisting of more than one hundred police officers stationed at the state line in order to stem the flow of poor migrant families.6 Dubbed the "Bum Blockade," this unauthorized vigilante force established check points at major road and rail crossings for the purpose of turning back newly arriving migrants who lacked obvious means of support.7 Davis promised that the blockade would save the state millions of dollars in welfare payments and criminal prosecutions. 8 The anti-migrant trend continued in 1937 when the California legislature passed the "anti-Okie" amendment to the California welfare law and made it a crime to bring indigent persons into the state. 9 In his defense of a legal challenge to 2. Carol Bidwell, Fleeing the Dust Bowl for a Golden Opportunity: Millions Escaping 1930s Hard Times in Midwest Found the Fabled California Unwelcoming, DAILY NEWS OF L.A., Mar. 12, 2008, at B 1, available at 2008 .WLNR 5083686. 3. PETER LACHAPELLE, PROUD To BE AN OKIE: CULTURAL POLITICS, COUNTRY MUSIC AND MIGRATION TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 22-23 (2007); see also FRANCISCO E. BALDERRAMA & RAYMOND RODRIGUEZ, DECADE OF BETRAYAL: MEXICAN REPATRIATION IN THE 1930s, at 76 (1995) (pointing out that among those hardest hit by the arrival of poor migrants from Oklahoma were Mexican migrant farm workers). While employers were urged not to replace local workers with Dust Bowl refugees, "knowing the language and customs, plus their willingness to work for starvation wages, gave the 'Okies' a decided advantage over Mexican workers. Mexican workers resented the intruders, and outbreaks of violence between the two competing groups were not uncommon." Id. 4. Cecilia Rasmussen, LA Then and Now: LAPD Blocked Dust Bowl Migrants at State Borders, L.A. TIMES, Mar. 9, 2003. 5. James N. Gregory, The Dust Bowl Migration, in POVERTY IN THE UNITED STATES: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HISTORY, POLITICS, AND POLICY 242 (Gwendolyn Mink & Alice O'Connor eds., 2004). 6. Id. at 244-45. 7. Rasmussen, supra note 4, at 4. 8. See id. (reporting that, although the program ended after two months in the face of threatened lawsuits, Davis claimed that the blockade had succeeded in keeping out 11,000 unwanted migrants and stopped a seasonal crime wave in Los Angeles). 9. Welfare and Institutions Code of California of 1937, Pub. L. No. 2615 ("Every person, firm or corporation, or officer or agent thereof that brings or assists in bringing into the State any indigent person who is not a resident of the State, knowing him to be an indigent person, is guilty of a misdemeanor."), invalidated by Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160 (1941). In 1939 the district attorneys of several of the counties most affected by the Dust Bowl influx began using the law in 296 GEORGETOWN IMMIGRATION LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 23:293 the law, the California Attorney General argued that migrants brought moral, health, and criminal problems to the state and called upon the federal government to do its part by addressing the national economic crisis contributing to California's "refugee" problem.° Fast-forward seventy years, and Oklahoma is once again at the center of another migrant crisis. This time the migrants are non-citizens, many unlawfully present in the United States, and this time they are flocking to rather than escaping from the Sooner State. Like the Dust Bowl migrants, most have come to Oklahoma in search of work and a better life and, as was true in California, those who arrived first and found work