OKLAHOMA CITY — The director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs told lawmakers on Tuesday that he is convinced transnational criminal organizations based in China have become deeply rooted in Oklahoma.
An interim study on threats posed by illegal immigration was organized by Reps. David Hardin, R-Stilwell, and Danny Williams, R-Seminole.
It included a sobering report by OBN Director Donnie Anderson about drug trafficking, human trafficking and other related criminal activity such as prostitution and underground gambling that has spiked in Oklahoma in recent years. Anderson said it can be attributed in large part to illegal immigration and specifically to the smuggling of people, including violent criminals, into the country by Mexican drug cartels and Chinese gangs.
Anderson said China has partnered with the Sinaloa cartel and other organized crime groups to smuggle fentanyl and methamphetamine into the United States, and that Oklahoma has become a center of distribution. Gangs have set up innumerable illegal marijuana grow operations in the state, he said, and have established “straw” businesses that function only to launder drug money.
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Many of the people involved have been illegally brought into the country, often against their will, Anderson said. Many are being held essentially as slaves.
He said the illegal activity has affected towns across Oklahoma, from Bixby to Ponca City to Guymon. OBN agents have encountered dangers ranging from extremely hazardous electrical wiring at marijuana farms to Asian gang members armed with assault rifles. He described “third world” conditions at some of the places where illegal immigrants have been forced to work. He also described serious threats to the environment, including to the state’s water supply.
Anderson said the Oklahoma Department of Corrections has been seriously impacted by illegal immigration and by gangs that continue to orchestrate drug dealing and other criminal activities from inside prisons. It’s been difficult, he said, even to hire trusted speakers of Mandarin to act as interpreters for OBN agents in their dealings with criminal suspects from China.
“There are people who … probably don’t believe that this country is being taken advantage of, but we are. There are other countries who want to see our demise, and they are infiltrating our country and this state,” Anderson said.
Others who met with members of the State Powers Committee of the House of Representatives included Canadian County Sheriff Chris West, who is also a board member of the National Sheriffs Association. He said it’s the view of the association that illegal immigration is a threat to national security. A fear is that the country may be vulnerable to a mass, coordinated terror strike.
The Oklahoma Legislature passed a law earlier this year that would allow local, county and other law enforcement officers to arrest and incarcerate immigrants who are in the state illegally. However, it faced immediate pushback from the U.S. Justice Department, which argued in court that its enforcement by the state would infringe on jurisdiction of the federal government. A judge ordered an injunction against enforcement of the law, which has been appealed by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond.
The law also drew protest from members of Oklahoma’s Latino community who expressed fears that it would be discriminatory and subject people, including law abiding citizens of Oklahoma, to racial profiling. Some among hundreds who turned out for a demonstration at the Capitol insisted, too, that most people in the immigrant community only want to live and work and that they make significant contributions to the state’s economy.
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