Strict immigration law rattles Okla. businesses
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Workers tag plants last month at Greenleaf Nursery in Park Hill, Okla. Dozens of employees disappeared from the nursery days before the law took effect Nov. 1.

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A worker walks past trees at Greenleaf Nursery Company in Park Hill, Okla. Nearly 5% of Oklahoma's 3.6 million residents are foreign-born, Census figures show.

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Senior pastor Jos� Alfonso of Tulsa's Iglesia Piedra Angular (Cornerstone Hispanic Church) estimates that 15% of his congregation has left. His church was a plaintiff in two lawsuits challenging the law.

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Randy Davis, president and CEO of Greenleaf Nursery Company, said that many of his employees left shortly before the law took effect. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated in April 2006 that up to 75,000 foreign-born residents in Oklahoma were illegal immigrants.

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By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY
PARK HILL, Okla. — Autumn had arrived in eastern Oklahoma, and workers at the sprawling Greenleaf Nursery were prepping for deadly frosts. They needed to ship plants, erect greenhouses and bunch trees together to protect them against the cold.
But in late October, about 40 employees disappeared from the 600-acre nursery about an hour's drive from Tulsa. "Some went to Texas, some went to Arkansas," nursery President Randy Davis says. "They just left."

Why did the workers, all immigrants, flee? "Those states don't have 1804," Davis says.

In a matter of weeks, "1804" has become part of the Sooner State's lexicon. It refers to House Bill 1804, the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007, arguably the nation's toughest state law targeting illegal immigrants.

Dozens of state legislatures, citing inaction by Congress, have adopted measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration. Oklahoma's new law, which took effect Nov. 1, is particularly far-reaching and has begun sending ripples through the state's economy and its immigrant communities. Besides highlighting the impact of illegal immigration on Oklahoma, the law has made the state a laboratory in the national debate over immigration.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Republican | Mexico | Oklahoma | Arkansas | Bill | Workers | Tulsa | Tim Wagner
The Oklahoma measure is broader than a controversial Arizona law that suspends or revokes business licenses of employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Among other things, 1804 makes it a felony to transport or shelter illegal immigrants. It also denies illegal immigrants driver's licenses and public benefits such as rental assistance and fuel subsidies.

Many business owners are especially nervous about provisions of 1804 that kick in July 1, when employers with government contracts must start checking new hires against a federal database to make sure they are legally eligible to work. If the employers don't, they won't get the contracts.

"I've already had customers who came in here and told me they've fired employees because they didn't know if they were here legally," says Tim Wagner, an owner of Cocina De Mino, a Mexican restaurant in Oklahoma City. He predicts industries such as agriculture will face worker shortages.

Widespread reports of vanishing employees and schoolchildren suggest thousands of illegal immigrants have left Oklahoma for neighboring states or their native countries. Cotton gins, hotels and home builders have lost workers. Restaurant and grocery store owners complain of fewer customers.

Some businesses and lawmakers are warning that the economic effects will hit consumers hard. Having a smaller pool of workers for certain jobs will cause delays and create competition among employers, leading them to raise wages and prices, Davis and others say.

Republican state Rep. Shane Jett, who opposed 1804, offers a more dire prediction. Without changes, the law "will be the single most destructive economic disaster since the Dust Bowl," he says.

State Rep. Randy Terrill, the Republican author of the law, counters that 1804 will save money because taxpayers won't be subsidizing services for illegal immigrants. "There's significant evidence that HB 1804 is achieving its intended purpose, which is illegal aliens leaving the state of Oklahoma," he says. "HB 1804 is a model not only for Oklahoma, but for other states and the nation as well."

An exodus from Tulsa

Legislatures in 46 states adopted 244 immigration-related measures last year, the National Conference of State Legislatures says. Before the passage of 1804, Oklahoma's immigrant population was growing, fueled by an expanding economy.

Nearly 5% of Oklahoma's 3.6 million residents are foreign-born, Census figures show. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated in April 2006 that up to 75,000 were illegal immigrants.

Texas, which borders Oklahoma and Mexico, has a longer history with immigration issues. Daniel Kowalski, a Texas immigration lawyer who edits Bender's Immigration Bulletin, believes a measure such as 1804 couldn't win approval in Texas, in part because about 16% of that state's 23.5 million residents are foreign-born. The center estimates that up to 1.6 million of them are illegal immigrants.

Since 1804 was approved in Oklahoma, 15,000-25,000 illegal immigrants have left Tulsa County, the Greater Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce says. Executive director Francisco Trevi?o bases the estimate on school enrollment, church attendance and reports from bus companies with service to Mexico.

"People are leaving to Mexico or Canada or other states," says Jim Garcia, manager of Tulsa's El Mercadito, a Hispanic grocery. He says sales have fallen 40% since Nov. 1. "A lot of people are going to Missouri or Arkansas because they think it's safer."

Arkansas state Rep. Rick Green, a Republican, says he has heard from a doctor who complained that illegal immigrants from Oklahoma have crossed the state line for medical care.

"With Arkansas being a very poor state economically, the concern is whether we can shoulder these expenses" stemming from any influx of immigrants from Oklahoma, he says.

Supporters of 1804 say the state will benefit from illegal immigrants leaving. "That's money in our pocket," says Carol Helm of Immigration Reform for Oklahoma Now.

Not all of those leaving Oklahoma are in the USA illegally. "I've lost two housekeepers out of a staff of 12," says Joe Geis, general manager of the Sleep Inn & Suites in Edmond. "They were here legally, (but) they have family" members who were not.

Immigrant activist Blanca Thames says she has helped more than 1,000 families prepare power-of-attorney papers to protect children in case parents are deported. Many illegal immigrants have U.S.-born children who are citizens.

Constitutionality challenged

At Iglesia Piedra Angular (Cornerstone Hispanic Church) in Tulsa, senior pastor José Alfonso estimates that he has lost 15% of his 425-member congregation.

His church was a plaintiff in two lawsuits filed by the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders that challenged the constitutionality of the law. Both were dismissed, the latest last month when U.S. District Judge James Payne ruled that the plaintiffs, who included illegal immigrants, didn't have standing to sue. He said they would not have been hurt if they had not violated U.S. law.

The coalition says it will appeal.

Several national and statewide business groups say they are considering their own lawsuit to challenge the law. "You're basically putting employers in the middle of this fight," says Jenna Hamilton of the National Association of Home Builders, one of the groups.

Lawmaker Terrill says he has little sympathy for businesses that hire illegal workers. He believes 1804 will create jobs for U.S. citizens.

"There is no job that an American citizen is unwilling to do," he says. "They're just not willing to do it at the wage rates that are being paid to illegal aliens."

But some employers say it's hard to hire citizens in their industries.

"We have extremely low unemployment. … The people in southwest Oklahoma who want to work are working," says Tom Buchanan, a cotton, cattle and wheat farmer in Jackson County.

Chris Ellison, manager of the Motley Gin cotton gin in Hollis, lost eight of 16 workers since Nov. 1. He says the loss sent his overtime costs soaring.

"I would love to hire 20 U.S. citizens here," Ellison says, but "local people are not going to quit a job to work three weeks during the year."

Both men say they obey U.S. laws and check workers' identity documents, but they acknowledge that some may have fake papers.

"We are not documents experts," Buchanan says.

Like farmers and landscapers, builders say they're struggling.

Earlier in 2007, Portillo Construction, which specializes in masonry and stone work in the Tulsa area, employed about 15 people, co-owner Natanael Portillo says. All were immigrants.

"On Nov. 1, not one employee showed up for work," he says.

He has since hired several laborers but lost a contract on a house, he says. "We're looking at between a $15,000 to $20,000 loss" for 2007, Portillo says.

Home builder Caleb McCaleb, who works in Oklahoma City and Edmond, says his framer lost 30 of his 80 workers, his painter lost 10 of 35 and his landscaper lost 15 of 40. That has put homes three or four weeks behind schedule.

"If we continue to lose workers, we are going to have to raise prices," he says.

Cocina De Mino has seen its Hispanic clientele decline, especially on Sundays, Wagner says.

"After church, usually at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, they (would) bring their family. It's usually groups of eight, 10 and 12," he says. "Those groups are not coming in."

At Plaza Santa Cecilia, a mall filled with Hispanic shops in Tulsa, Simon Navarro's customer base has evaporated. Navarro, owner of a money-wiring service, says 500 people would come in every day to send money to relatives in Mexico and Central America. "Now," he says, "I have 100."

'Son of 1804' on horizon

Terrill plans to introduce a follow-up bill this year that he calls "Son of 1804."

"HB 1804 does not represent everything that can or should be done in this area," he says. Among other things, he says, the new measure would make English the state's official language and allow police to seize property of those who violate 1804, including landlords.

Terrill says he has been contacted by legislators in at least a dozen states who have introduced or are drafting legislation similar to 1804.

Arkansas legislators may introduce bills when they next meet in January 2009, Green says. Some Arkansans who don't want to wait will try to get a measure on the ballot this year.

"We're getting a lot of pressure at home because they see what Oklahoma's done," Green says.

In Oklahoma, some of Terrill's colleagues say 1804 needs fixing.

State Rep. Kris Steele, a Republican who voted for the bill, has received calls from non-immigrants complaining that they had to produce a document such as an original birth certificate or certified copy to renew an expired driver's license. "I want to make sure we're not necessarily putting the general public in a quandary," he says.

Jett would like to create a state-run program that would allow illegal immigrants to pay a fine, then work and pay taxes. Those people, he says, would be exempt from 1804 at the state level but not from federal immigration law.

Jose and Esperanza Becerra, both 38, hope he succeeds.

The Tulsa couple came to Oklahoma from Mexico illegally, Jose 10 years ago and his wife five years ago. They were drawn here "because it was a pretty state and there was work," Jose says.

Since 1804 passed, the Becerras have closed their bank account and put their home on the market, just in case they are forced to leave quickly or against their will. "Since the law went into effect," Esperanza says, "we are in fear every day."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/opinion/05sat3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

January 5, 2008
EDITORIAL
Rehabilitating Libya

We are all for forgiveness and second acts, but Libya’s sordid human rights record and continuing police state tactics should not be forgotten. Businesses — and their government backers — rushing to procure contracts with the oil-rich state would prefer to ignore what’s happening on the ground in Libya. President Bush and other democratic leaders cannot, and must keep pressing Tripoli for change.

Libya’s return from the cold began in 2003. First, it accepted responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland — agreeing to compensate the victims’ families — and forswore terrorism. Then it gave up its clandestine nuclear program.

Last month, Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was feted in Paris. This month, the country that until 2003 was under United Nations Security Council sanctions took over the council’s presidency. This week, its foreign minister made an official visit to Washington. There were no meetings with Mr. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. There was a personal tour of the White House, meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other cabinet members and lunch with representatives of some of America’s biggest companies.

Rehabilitating a pariah state is never easy or without distasteful aspects. Re-engagement must be carefully calibrated so long as Libya continues to operate outside international norms by jailing political prisoners, torturing detainees, ignoring the rule of law and refusing to pay settlement claims promised to families of victims of Lockerbie and the 1986 bombing of the La Belle disco in Berlin. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is right to withhold confirmation of the first American ambassador to Tripoli in decades until those claims are resolved. (A chargé d’affaires represents Washington’s interests.)

According to Human Rights Watch, three Libyan dissidents have disappeared in the last 18 months. Abed al-Rahman al-Qotaiwi and Jum’ a Boufayed were arrested in early 2007 after planning a peaceful protest. Fathi Eljahmi has been in detention since 2004 when he gave interviews critical of Colonel Qaddafi. One of Ms. Rice’s top aides raised Mr. Eljahmi’s case with the foreign minister on Thursday. Ms. Rice, who discussed human rights generally during her meeting, would have made a stronger point if she had raised all three cases herself.

Libya is keen to have Ms. Rice visit this year. Before that happens, she is going to have to press a lot harder for changes in Libya’s behavior, including releasing dissidents and settling the Lockerbie claims. Colonel Qaddafi needs to understand that Libya’s responsibilities don’t end just because its isolation has.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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ADVOCACY GROUP SAYS FREEDOM ON DECLINE

By Andrew Tully

2007 was a bad year for freedom, according to a prominent rights-advocacy organization that has registered a global decline in political rights and civil liberties for the second consecutive year.
In its annual "Freedom Of The World" report released today, the New York-based group Freedom House found that one-fifth of the 193 countries it studied suffered setbacks last year. None of the states that earned the lowest designation, "not free," in 2006 showed any improvement last year, and it was the first time in the report's 15-year history that a two-year decline had been recorded.
The former Soviet republics were among the worst performers, with parliamentary elections late in the year in Russia, rated "not free," highlighting the perilous environment in the region's most influential state.
"It's fair to say that freedom is seriously lacking in this region or unit, that is to say the former Soviet Union," Freedom House Director of Studies Chris Walker told RFE/RL. "Of the 12 non-Baltic former Soviet republics, seven of those are assessed by Freedom House as 'not free,' four are 'partly free,' and one is 'free' [Ukraine]. So, it's a very challenging landscape for freedom in that part of the world."
Belarus, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are among the "worst of the worst" countries in the world in terms of human rights, and are joined on the list of "not free" countries by Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
Two countries looked upon as examples of positive democratic change, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, both rated "partly free," took steps backward -- with Russia's influence in obstructing reforms being noted in the case of Kyrgyzstan.
"There were big hopes for Kyrgyzstan and Georgia that if new people came to power, then [the new governments] would apply democratic principles by their actions and pressure [on the opposition] would stop," Ilim Karypbekov, director of the Media Representative Institute in Kyrgyzstan, tells RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service. "However, if you look at Georgia, protest rally participants were beaten up again," Karypbekov continues. "At the same time, international observer missions showed that the [Georgian presidential] election was held under enormous pressure [on the opposition] and with the use of administrative resources. The same happened in Kyrgyzstan's [early parliamentary elections in December 2007]."
Joining Kyrgyzstan and Georgia among the former Soviet republics considered "partly free" were Armenia and Moldova.
The best of the bunch is Ukraine, which Walker says remains "free" because it has competing factions with well-defined positions, and a population that accepts the results of well-conducted elections.
Democracy in Georgia, rated "partly free," suffered in 2007 due to President-elect Mikheil Saakashvili's ability to dominate the political scene. The imposition of a state of emergency and a violent police crackdown on opposition rallies late in the year served to highlight the country's problems, according to Freedom House, but Walker notes that there is room for vocal dissent in the country.
Russia is a different matter altogether, according to Walker.
"2007 was a pivotal year for authoritarian consolidation in Russia in part due to the manipulated parliamentary elections in December, and the managed succession process which really revealed itself by the end of the year where it became very clear that there would not be an opportunity for ordinary Russians to have an open and fair selection of their next president," Walker says.
A man in Nizhny Novgorod, who requested anonymity, tells RFE/RL's Russian Service that "I've never been to other countries, so I can't say how the situation in our country is different from theirs. But compared to the Soviet Union, I don't see any radical changes." "We never had freedom even though they tried to create it in the 1990s," the man adds. "What we are left with now, at least in my opinion, is a semblance of freedom."
A man in Yekaterinburg, meanwhile, tells the service that freedoms in Russia cannot be compared with those in European countries. "I think we're at the level of Central Asian countries where rights and freedoms basically exist on paper but in reality [are not upheld]," he says. "The presidential election campaign has exceeded all limits because there is a cult of personality, and that is taking us back to the past."
Of the former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe, most advanced on the road to freedom, according to the report. Only Latvia -- rated "free" -- and Bosnia -- rated "partly free" -- showed signs of moving backward during 2007.
Aneta Grosu, editor in chief of the weekly investigative magazine "Ziarul de Garda," describes the situation in Moldova, which retained its "partly free" rating.
"Year by year it is more difficult with freedoms in Moldova: with press freedom, freedom of different opinions, human rights," Grosu tells RFE/RL's Romania-Moldova Service. "And for us, journalists, it is more and more difficult to do our job in these circumstances. Access to information is more limited, there is tougher punishment for what the authorities call libel, sometimes we face threats or acts of revenge from people we write about."
The report characterized Iran as "not free" and called it a "dictatorship," accusing it of not only suppressing the rights of its people, but also of imposing its influence on other countries through the support of Muslim militants.
Iraq, too, is rated "not free" because it has limited freedom, given the persistent sectarian fighting between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims that poisons daily life in much of the country.
Walker says the annual report is meant to be studied by all those with influence in the countries that are rated, from government officials to members of the local news media. The point: to spark debate about how freedoms can be improved.
Sometimes, however, governments react with hostility, Walker says, again pointing to Russia as an example.
The work of nongovernmental organizations, including Freedom House, has been increasingly scrutinized in Russia, which argues that some countries use such entities work to spread their influence in Russia.
Recently Russia opened branches of its own Institute of Democracy and Cooperation in Paris and New York, with the intention of improving Russia's image abroad.
The organization's chairman, Anatoly Kucherena, recently told "The Moscow Times" that the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation has "no desire to copy the behavior of organizations like Freedom House...which has only one goal: to publish data which was assembled using methodologies that nobody understands, in order to draw attention to themselves."
Walker says that "attacks on our findings" aren't based on the substance of the report. And, he says, too often governments criticized in the report fail to debate such findings with the country's opposition.
"The local civil society in the country like Russia should have a right to talk about these findings without fear of reprisal and the hope is that it will help identify areas of concern, areas where there are problems, areas where there are possibilities for improvement so that domestic institutions can take the steps to make those improvements," Walker says. "I think that ultimately is the fundamental hope here."

(Andrew Tully is an RFE/RL correspondent based in Washington, D.C. RFE/RL correspondent Nikola Krastev interviewed Freedom House's Christopher Walker.)

IMF PREDICTS ECONOMIC PROGRESS IN IRAQ. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on January 16 that it expects to see Iraq's economy grow in the next two years, international media reported the same day. Mohsin Khan, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia department, said he expects 7 percent growth in Iraq's GDP in 2008 and 7-8 percent growth in 2009, up from just 1.3 percent in 2007. The forecasted growth is mainly due to high oil prices and an expected increase in oil production. With regard to Iraq's oil production, Khan sees "at least" an increase of 200,000 barrels per day, bringing the total to 2.2 million barrels per day. "Of course, all of this is conditional on oil-production expansion and the security situation improving," Khan cautioned. He also said Iraq shows "very impressive" signs of progress toward economic reforms, including strengthening of the central bank and a sharp curb on inflation. SS

UN ENVOY SAYS PASSING OF LAW BRINGS HOPE FOR IRAQ. In a January 16 interview with Reuters, UN special envoy to Iraq Staffan de Mistura said that the passing of the Accountability and Justice Law was an encouraging sign for Iraq, despite his earlier misgivings about the country's political situation. "At the beginning of the year we were worried...we were genuinely concerned by the lack of progress on national dialogue," de Mistura said. "Today that has substantially changed. It has changed our mind from being worried or from being pessimistic," he added. The new law, unanimously passed on January 12, was a revision of the de-Ba'athification law, which paves the way for thousands of former Ba'athists who lost their jobs following the downfall of the former regime to return to their government and military posts (see "RFE/RL Newsline," January 14, 2008). De Mistura also indicated that the law's passage would encourage him to present a positive picture of progress in Iraq in his upcoming report to the UN Security Council. He said the report will "compliment" the Iraqi government's work on fostering national reconciliation. However, he warned that Iraq still needs to pass more key legislation, including a revenue-sharing oil law and a provincial-elections law. "Iraq needs to maintain the momentum, 2008 is going to be a crucial year," de Mistura stressed. SS