Hundreds of Hispanic Oklahomans rally to protest new immigration law

Hundreds of people, most of them Latino, attend a Hispanic Cultural Day rally outside the Oklahoma State Capitol on Wednesday to protest the newly enacted House Bill 4156, which creates the criminal offense of impermissible occupation. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)

OKLAHOMA CITY — Two years ago, Lesly Fraire was proud to pose for pictures with Gov. Kevin Stitt at a luncheon celebrating her Hispanic heritage. Now, she says she and the Latino students who met with the governor feel like nothing more than a “photo opportunity” after Stitt signed Oklahoma’s controversial immigration bill.

Fraire asked administrators at Santa Fe South High School, where she is valedictorian and student body president, to decline all future invitations from the governor, who despite praising the Hispanic community’s contributions to Oklahoma, signed House Bill 4156.

The law creates a new criminal offense of “impermissible occupation” and permits local police to arrest those without legal authorization to enter the country.

“We desire genuine support for our communities, and not be used as a prop in a photo,” Fraire, a daughter of Mexican immigrants, said while speaking at a rally on the Capitol steps.

Hundreds of Oklahomans, most of them Latino, gathered in front of the state Capitol on Wednesday to protest the law on Hispanic Cultural Day. They later entered the building and coated the governor’s door with papers accusing elected leaders of choosing “politics over people.”

It was a crowd wearing work boots, hospital scrubs and neon construction vests. Many sported shirts from Latino-owned bakeries, home renovation companies and grocery stores. They raised banners from Mexico and Central America, but more than any, they carried flags of red, white and blue. 

“How can anybody look at these injured immigrant hands, those that put down our flooring, those that build our buildings and homes, those who put down our roofing, who fix our streets, who pick up our food and more and tell them that we do not belong here?” said Jessica Cifuentes, a Guatemalan and a member of the Oklahoma City Board of Education.

House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka, and Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, wrote HB 4156. They said the bill was necessary to help curb the influx of illegal immigration at the southern border.

Treat praised the measure for protecting immigrants who entered the country legally while giving law enforcement the tools to “go after criminals.”

“The southern border crisis has created a scourge of illegal activities, including an increase in fentanyl, human trafficking and crime in our communities because of the inaction and abject failure at the federal level to secure our borders,” Treat said in a statement after Stitt signed the bill into law last month. “The Oklahoma Legislature is taking the necessary action to protect our citizens.”

However, the law has drawn sharp criticism from law enforcement leaders, who said HB 4156 could make public safety issues worse, not better. 

The Oklahoma Association of Chiefs of Police issued a joint statement on Tuesday, saying the law could discourage crime victims from reporting to police and “has the potential to destroy the connections and relationships we have built within our local immigrant communities and set us back for many years to come.”

“Further, HB 4156 brings forth legal challenges in fair and impartial policing and anti-racial profiling,” the group stated. “These unintended consequences may deteriorate public trust in law enforcement in already vulnerable communities, ultimately resulting in increased public safety concerns.”

Those who are convicted of impermissible occupation are required to leave the state within 72 hours. 

The first offense is a misdemeanor, punishable by a year in a county jail or a fine up to $500, or both. A second offense would raise the criminal charge to a felony and increase potential fines and prison time.

“I think Americans are fed up with the porous borders and the illegal crossings that are coming in,” Stitt said after he signed the bill. “And so we’re just wanting the Biden administration to actually fix that.” 

While debating HB 4156, Republican lawmakers made several references to “terrorists” and drug traffickers entering through the southern border with Mexico.

Fraire and other speakers, several of them immigrants themselves or children of immigrant families, said at the Wednesday rally they took particular offense to their community being described in this way. Many used their remarks to recognize the Hispanic families, laborers, business owners and college-educated professionals living in the state.

Guatemalan-born Mario Arenas, a founder of Arenas Sports Center in south Oklahoma City, said the immigrant community has been a “pillar for the economy of Oklahoma.”

“The big question is what have we done to them?” Arenas said in an impassioned speech in Spanish. “What have we taken away from them? Nothing. The opposite. We have given our strength, our work.”

HB 4156 takes effect July 1. It is expected to draw a legal challenge.

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