Oklahoma Chronicle: How are immigration policies impacting Oklahoma?
How are President Donald Trump’s immigration policies impacting Oklahoma?
ICE and immigration enforcement in general continues to ramp up, and we’re seeing efforts to expand in Oklahoma. Last week, KOCO reported on warnings to tribal members from their leaders after reports of Native Americans being targeted by ICE agents. This week, news broke of *** new ICE processing center planned for an Oklahoma City warehouse. At an event this week, KOCO Chantelle Navarro asked Senator James Lankford his thoughts on what is happening with immigration enforcement. If you know somebody that you’re working with is not legally present and also has *** criminal record, you need to turn them in. Senator James Lankford says if you don’t turn in undocumented people near you, you’re putting yourself at risk. Wednesday we asked why only 5.5% of the people deported out of Oklahoma last year have criminal records. According to researchers at Syracuse University. There has been *** huge increase in the number of people. That are arrested and picked up and deported that don’t have criminal records, but the reason for that often is when ICE moves in, they move in looking for *** particular person they know has *** criminal history, but then they ask everyone in the workplace, what is your record right now for immigration? If there are other folks that are there that are not legally present, they’re also getting scooped up. Langford says the same goes if they live with you. The senator also addressed the backlog of people waiting for immigration appointments, millions nationally, and more than 190,000 at the Dallas immigration court alone, which is where most Oklahomans report to. Langford says the federal government is working on that. Those are all things that are in the legal process. It takes time to get through those. The problem was during the Biden administration they just kept adding more and more and more to that backlog. People couldn’t get their day in court because there’s millions of people in the backlog. So it’s the Trump administration is doing. Is adding more judges, adding more processing so you can actually get an answer to people, to people that qualify to be able to be here, can be here, and people that don’t get an answer and they can head back to their home country. We also asked about the new ICE processing center that may be coming to Oklahoma City. Langford says while he hasn’t spoken to the city yet, he has talked with DHS. This is another detention and transfer facility very similar to what we have in the federal transfer facility for prisoners right next to the airport that. Been there for decades. That facility is not meant to be able to house people long term. It’s *** transfer facility where people come in, they get processed, and then they go out from there. That facility has been *** big employer in Oklahoma City for *** very long time and has had absolutely no issues there at the federal transfer facilities. I understand there’s some people that want to have open cities. They want to have *** sanctuary city. They don’t want people arrested and removed. I understand all that, but we also have federal law. We’re going to enforce federal law. reporting and joining us here in studio this week for Oklahoma Chronicle. Thanks, Chantelle. We appreciate it. This is not the first story that you’ve done on this topic. Recently you did *** whole story about the backlog of people who were waiting to have their cases held out of the Dallas immigration offices, and that was *** huge number, wasn’t it? Yes, so the Dallas. Immigration courthouse and that’s the one where Oklahomans go to it’s just the closest office but we don’t have one here in Oklahoma technically, so *** lot of times they have to go over there or they have to go somewhere like Kansas depending on where they get detained from right over there it’s about 190,000 people just waiting for their for their case to be heard. That’s the backlog that’s the. The Dallas Regional office. That was the latest numbers from January to September of last year. So that’s just the latest numbers that we have available. Senator Lankford is such *** good person to talk to about these issues. He’s obviously done *** lot of work on immigration. We remember him really getting thrown under the bus last year by his fellow Republicans when he had done that bipartisan work towards legislation. That did not ever end up seeing the floor and one of those things I know was to expand the courts, be able to reduce the backlog. He did say though that under President Trump that we are seeing some of these numbers come down, more judges, so I found that notable. So yes, so after this story, after this last time I spoke to Senator Lankford, I asked him about the backlog again, and I said, you know, it’s 190,000 people. In the Dallas office and he recognized he’s like yeah, it’s millions of people nationwide, but here it is *** lot. But he said that under the Trump administration he claims that they are hiring more judges and trying to hear more of those cases through. I don’t have exact numbers on how successful that is at this point, but that’s what he’s saying right now. Let’s talk about that discrepancy *** little bit more about what we’re hearing from the Department of Justice and ICE about who they are targeting, who they are actually taking into custody. And who we are finding in our own reporting because they’re saying 70% have criminal records or have warrants or something like that, right? Yes, they’re wanted. They’re saying 70% of the people that they’re deporting are criminals and they’re describing them as Murders, rapists, gang members, the worst of the worst is what they’re saying. But you’re reporting, you found it was, it’s not even in the same ballpark. It was 5%, not even close. Yes, it’s here in Oklahoma. People deported from Oklahoma, 5.5%, and those are people from Aggravated assault charges or other criminal charges, and that’s again between January and September of last year alone and that was from researchers from Syracuse University so they’ve been tracking these numbers and they’ve been basing it on the ICE data that’s available. And it also says that nationally that 70% number is actually 1.6%. 1.6% of those deported are actually with alleged based criminal activity. All right. Does that include people, and maybe it doesn’t, that perhaps had been arrested for something or there was *** warrant out for their arrest, or those are people that actually have criminal records and are still in the United States? That’s not as clear as what it is saying is based. Criminal-based deportation charges is how they’re explaining it. So again, aggravated assaults, murder charges, something like that, like the way they’re saying murderers, rapists, gang, right, right, right. But what we can say with clarity is that the number that ICE is giving us, the Department of Justice, and our independent reporting number is *** huge gulf. Yes, you’ve been talking to immigration attorneys as well about this. What do their experiences, their clients’ experiences, how do they match up with the narrative that we’re getting? From the Department of Justice, so I’ve been talking with multiple immigration attorneys and they all kind of tell me the same thing. I, I told them about the numbers that I found on this and they say yeah, that, that makes sense because what they’re seeing *** lot of their clients are people with traffic tickets, people that get picked up for *** traffic ticket or something, and then they go ask for their papers and then they don’t have them and that’s how they end up getting detained and deported and even worse than that they’ve also been telling me that they’ve seen right there when they go to court the people who don’t have any kind of representation. They expedite their cases and because they don’t have anybody to stand up for them and then they’ll just deport them sometimes even on the spot, OK, and that people perhaps that have been in this country for *** while because I remember this report, I remember you said I remember the immigration attorney that you spoke to did say that there were people who had been in this country for *** long time, had been paying taxes, and would check in with their immigration officers on *** regular basis in the past, and now they go to. Check in and and and that’s that’s the exact difference is what what these immigration attorneys are saying is yeah they’re they’re actually using this as *** way to bump up the numbers right? They’re going, they’re doing things how the Trump administration says the right way, right? like like they’re going, they’re going to their hearings and they’re going to the routine check in and then they suddenly get *** note that says oh wait, no, we’re gonna, we’re gonna expedite it to deportation instead. All right, Chantel Navarro doing reporting for us. We appreciate your reporting and we appreciate you coming on the program. All right, thank you, Evan. Thank you.
Oklahoma Chronicle: How are immigration policies impacting Oklahoma?
How are President Donald Trump’s immigration policies impacting Oklahoma?
Updated: 3:18 PM CST Jan 25, 2026
How are President Donald Trump’s immigration policies impacting Oklahoma? On this week’s edition of Oklahoma Chronicle with Evan Onstot, KOCO 5’s Chantelle Navarro discusses a proposed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility that could move into an Oklahoma City warehouse. >> Video Below: Sen. James Lankford addresses immigration policy impacts in OklahomaU.S. Sen. James Lankford provided clarity on how immigration policies are impacting Oklahomans, following a recent investigation that found only 5.5% of those deported from Oklahoma last year had criminal records, compared to the Department of Homeland Security’s claim that 70% of deportees are criminals.Tribal nations in Oklahoma have also released statements, warning that some Native Americans could be targeted by ICE officials. >> Video Below: Chickasaw Nation urges extra precautions amid ICE increaseOpen the video player above to watch the full conversation.
How are President Donald Trump’s immigration policies impacting Oklahoma?
On this week’s edition of Oklahoma Chronicle with Evan Onstot, KOCO 5’s Chantelle Navarro discusses a proposed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility that could move into an Oklahoma City warehouse.
>> Video Below: Sen. James Lankford addresses immigration policy impacts in Oklahoma
U.S. Sen. James Lankford provided clarity on how immigration policies are impacting Oklahomans, following a recent investigation that found only 5.5% of those deported from Oklahoma last year had criminal records, compared to the Department of Homeland Security’s claim that 70% of deportees are criminals.
Tribal nations in Oklahoma have also released statements, warning that some Native Americans could be targeted by ICE officials.
>> Video Below: Chickasaw Nation urges extra precautions amid ICE increase
Open the video player above to watch the full conversation.