Oklahoma, led by Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, plans to be among the first states to take advantage of President-elect Donald Trump's border mandates and empty the state’s prisons of criminal illegal immigrants, the Washington Examiner reported on Friday.
Stitt spoke exclusively to the outlet and said that his state plans to deport more than 500 convicted illegal immigrants currently in Oklahoma prisons as soon as Trump takes office in January. “We want to be the first state that works with President Trump,” Stitt said. “Right now, we have over 500 people incarcerated in Oklahoma who have broken the law, who are criminals, and they also are illegal,” the governor added. “We would love to get them out of the state of Oklahoma, out of the country.”
Trump has long positioned himself as a border hawk and has promised he will conduct mass deportations of illegal immigrants once elected. "We're going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country," Trump said last month during a speech in Los Angeles, California.
According to the governor’s office, it costs the state $36,000 every day to house the 526 illegal immigrants now incarcerated in Oklahoma prisons. Stitt plans to turn the convicts over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement before their sentences are over.
“We’re going to turn them over immediately to get them out of here,” the governor said. “I don’t know how any Oklahoman would argue with me. I don’t think on this, and I don’t know how Americans would think this is not very reasonable.”
Trump recently nominated “border czar” Tom Homan who indicated that on the first day of the new administration criminal illegals will be in “shock and awe.” Speaking on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast on Rumble, Homan said that his plan of mass deportations will result in “less overdose deaths, less sex trafficking,” and “less migrants dying.”
Yet crime victim advocates are not as enthusiastic about granting early release for criminals, regardless of their citizenship status. Naida Henao, head of engagement for the Network for Victim Recovery of DC told the outlet that the governor’s plan could cause angst among survivors. “It would vary a little bit from client to client, survivor to survivor because folks have different preferences,” she said, “However, what we have found, generally speaking, is that folks actually feel less safe when folks are deported.”
The pilot program for Oklahoma’s efforts, named Operation Guardian, will be led by Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton. “I am currently working with leadership of our law enforcement partners to fully develop our operational strategy to be prepared for implementation as soon as the new administration takes office,” Tipton said in a statement.