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An Oklahoma coalition has joined a national immigration reform movement.

The new Oklahoma chapter of FWD.us involves business, community and faith leaders. Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Francisco Trevino said its important businesses take the lead because they understand the economic implications of immigration.

By 2025, three-fourths of the workforce is going to be Hispanics. What are we going to do without 11 million people that are not going to be able to work if they're not here?" Trevino said.

Laura Bachman with YWCA Tulsa said the primary strategy is to change a narrative that currently paints immigrants as criminals and dehumanizes them to a more positive one.

Whether that's success in starting their own business and becoming a successful entrepreneur here in Oklahoma or a valedictorian of a high school or just the refugee coming in with nothing who then becomes a U.S. citizen and contributes to our local economy," Bachman said.

FWD.us supports secure borders, a modernized visa system and a pathway to citizenship for current undocumented immigrants, which includes overhauling existing statutes that often contradict each other.

"You cannot be in the United States unlawfully and adjust your status to permanent resident, but, at the same time, it's lawful for a U.S. citizen to petition for their immigrant spouse," Bachman said. "So, a U.S. citizen who tries to petition for their immigrant spouse can't always do that if their immigrant spouse is unlawfully present."

FWD.us Oklahoma says immigrants make up 6 percent of the state population and pay $346 million a year in state and local taxes. Roughly 96,000 of those immigrants are undocumented.

Continued here:
Local Immigration Reform Advocates Join National Initiative | Public ... - Public Radio Tulsa

Des Moines Register 5:31 p.m. CT April 27, 2017

Iowa Rep. David Young takes a question on immigration from Vern Naffier of Ankeny during a town hall meeting at city hall in Waukee Friday, March 31, 2017.(Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)Buy Photo

Parents try to prepare their children for dangerous situations. Get out of the house if theres a fire. A tornado warning means go to the basement. If someone tries to grab you, scream and run. Such advice is intended to helpkeep children safe.

Now some parents feel they need to prepare their kids for a tragic scenario most of us have never contemplated:the possibility mom and dad could be detained by immigration officials and deported.

More than 4 million children who were born in the United States have at least one parent who is an unauthorized immigrant. The kids are citizens, but if their parents unexpectedly disappear, what do they do?They may end up in foster care.

The heightened fear of deportation created by an anti-immigration Trump administration is real. The stories emerging about deportation, including one about a young California man who should have been protected by his status as a dreamer, are troubling.

Since March there have been 19 deportations in Des Moines, according to a local immigration advocacy group. But a spokesperson for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not confirm that number and declined to comment in response to questions from this newspaper.

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Consider the gravity of this lack of accountability. The federal government is taking into custody people living in the United States of America but will not confirm how many and which people. This conjures images of Nazi roundups in Germany or racial sorting in South Africa.

The tendency is to blame Trump. His rhetoric has certainly emboldened immigration officials and fostered xenophobia. But this country has more than just an executive branch of government. The problems surfacing are largely the result of Congress repeatedly failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

That failure forced President Barack Obama to use his executive authority to allow some immigrants brought here as children to remain temporarily in the country. It has led to a shortage of immigrant labor in the agriculture industry. It leaves our neighbors living in fear of losing their families, their jobs and the country they consider home.

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Many Washington lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, say they sympathize with the stories of some immigrants. They have heard from farmers and businessleaders who cannot obtain the documentation needed to legally hire enough immigrant workers.

What have these lawmakers done to address the many problems? Nothing.

There will always be some in Congress, including Iowas Rep. Steve King, who are a lost cause onimmigration reform. These attention-seeking lawmakers are fixated on tired, unhelpful ideas, like passing English-only laws or building a wall across the Mexican border.

RELATED: Iowa activists confront King after "Do you always lie in English?" tweet

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Fortunately, support from every member of Congress is not needed to finally and rightly tackle this issue. Creating a pathfor law-abiding, hardworking people to remain in this country makes economic sense.

More tax revenue including payroll taxes to fund Social Security and Medicare is generated when workers are legitimately paid. Immigrants who feel secure they have a future here willbuy houses, obtain driver's licenses, attend college and invest in their communities.

That is good for the entire country. But unless Congress acts, this better future will never be realized, regardless of who resides in the White House.

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Editorial: Congress should finally pass immigration reform - DesMoinesRegister.com

Its an annual headline. Every April as the deadline for H-1B guest worker applications approaches there is the predictable news that far more applications are filed than there are visas available. And the usual interpretation spun by the tech employers is that the number of visas available is woefully inadequate to meet the industrys demands. This year was no exception 200,000 applications for 65,000 visas.

The annual headline is inevitably followed by the inevitable lament that the American tech industry cant find qualified workers in this country and that it is being hamstrung by the stingy number of guest worker visas made available each year. For years, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has been disputing these self-serving industry claims. Now, a new Ford Foundation-funded report by the Kapor Center and the Harris Polling company confirms that the tech industrys labor problems are not the result of a dearth of qualified workers, but their own dysfunctional work environments.

The Kapor report concludes that many workers are leaving their jobs with tech companies because unfairness, in the form of everyday behavior (stereotyping, harassment, bullying, etc.) is a real and destructive part of the tech work environment, particularly affecting underrepresented groups and driving talent out the door. These reprehensible (if not outright illegal) employment practices are costing the industry $16 billion a year in lost productivity, finds the report.

If the tech industry is having a difficult time finding qualified workers for available jobs in this country, its not because those workers do not exist here. Its just that American workers dont particularly like being stereotyped, harassed, and bullied and well-educated and skilled workers often have other options. It also seems that many highly profitable companies would rather rely on beholden guest workers than reform the work cultures that are driving American workers away.

Read more:
The Real Reason Tech Companies Demand Immigrants and Guest Workers: They're Lousy Places to Work - ImmigrationReform.com (blog)

The Florida House of Representatives is gearing up to ban sanctuary policies in the state after the House Judiciary Committee approved House Bill (HB) 697 on April 25. HB 697, also known as the Rule of Law Adherence Act, was introduced by Representative Larry Metz (R-32) earlier this year. The measure will ensure the state fully participates in immigration enforcement and will eliminate policies that impede enforcement efforts in the state.

Specifically, HB 697 requires all state and local entities to comply with and support immigration enforcement to the full extent permitted by law. The measure also prohibits state and local entities from stopping or limiting public officials ability to maintain or communicate immigration status information with the federal government. Law enforcement agencies, under HB 697, are also required to comply with detainers issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

HB 697 also guarantees whistle-blower protections to any state or local employees that reports violation of the Act. Any state or local entity that violates HB 697 may be subject of fines up to $5,000 per day they are determined to be in violation of the Act.

Representative Metz introduced HB 697 to support immigration enforcement and maintain Floridas commitment to the rule of law. Its all-important in my view that the rule of law be followed, Metz said. If we simply say, If you can get here, you can stay here, and we dont care about the legal distinctions, were going to have more and more people coming here illegally and fewer coming here through the legal immigration system.

Senator Aaron Bean, who introduced a similar bill in the Senate, also commented on the proposal. The one thing that everybody should know in our country is: We cant choose which laws well obey or which laws we dont obey, said Senator Bean.

State lawmakers around the country have made eliminating expensive sanctuary policies a priority this legislative session. Policies that block immigration enforcement efforts are especially expensive in Florida. In 2014, the Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that Florida taxpayers pay as much as $5.2 billion annually in costs associated with illegal immigration. Florida has one of the highest populations of illegal aliens in the country, behind California, Texas, and New York.

HB 697 has been put on the third reading calendar and must be approved by the full Florida House before it can be sent to the Florida Senate for consideration. The Florida House passed a similar bill prohibiting sanctuary policies last year, but it failed to advance due to insufficient support in the Florida Senate.

Read more here:
Florida House Gearing Up To Ban Sanctuary Policies - ImmigrationReform.com (blog)

Earlier this week President Trump hosted a roundtable of farmers at the White House to discuss issues facing agriculture.

The panel of 14 people included farmers, one national FFA officer and the newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

We had a very diverse group not only in regard to production agriculture but also diversity in regard to gender, ethnicity and age, says Hank Choate, a seventh-generation dairy and row crop farmer near Cement City, Mich.

The group discussed many of the issues farmers are currently up against including immigration, labor, trade, regulation and infrastructure.

Choate says the discussion on immigration was encouraging and that it seems the President began to have a clearer picture of the need for reform.

The farmers in the group made it abundantly clear that many of the immigrant workers on farms have been working for those farms for a long time and are law abiding citizens.

According to Choate, Mr. Trump said the administration will develop a program that not only gives security and piece of mind to those workers but will also provide farmers the skilled labor they need.

The H2A Visa program was also a hot topic during the discussion. A nursery grower from Ohio shared how it had been harder for him to hire employees through the program as the number of visas accessible had been reduced under the Obama administration.

Choate says the President turned to Sonny Perdue and asked that problem be addressed as soon as possible.

Maybe theres hope for immigration reform that benefits farmers after all.

Original post:
Trump Promises Immigration Reform That Will Work for Agriculture - AgWeb