Rep. Sullivan was outraged but determined to take constructive action. He worked to increase the number of agents in Oklahoma City to six.
This was still a relatively meager number of immigration law enforcement officers for the state. According to a 2003 INS study, there were 46,000 illegal aliens in Oklahoma in the year 2000. If the number remained constant, and six immigration law enforcement officers were deployed in the state at all times, it would mean immigration law enforcement would be out-manned by illegal aliens there by about 7,666-to-one.
So, guess what?
Just before midnight on Sept. 21, police from the Tulsa suburb of Catoosa stopped a truck for speeding on Interstate 44. There were 18 people on board, including teen-agers. Only two had valid identification. The others were suspected of being illegal aliens. One was arrested for possessing a substance thought to be cocaine. ICE told the police to let the rest go.
The Tulsa World reported: "Because no holding facility was available, [ICE regional spokesman Carl] Rusnok said, the individuals would have had to stay out on the road for several more hours before an agent could arrive at the scene. 'That's just geography,' he said."
More than three years after Sept. 11, 2001, Tulsa, Okla. -- in the heart of the heartland -- remains beyond the perimeter of U.S. immigration enforcement.
But California Rep. Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, wants to strip some of the House Republican immigration proposals from the intelligence bill. "We're all for stronger border controls and security measures at the border," she said at an Oct. 22 press conference, "but we feel that a lot of these extraneous provisions have to be removed."
House Republicans are willing to make reasonable compromises, but advocates of their approach point to a 9/11 Commission staff report on immigration and border security. "The first problem encountered by those concerned about terrorists was an almost complete lack of enforcement resources," says the report. "Neither the White House, the Congress, the Department of Justice, nor the INS leadership ever provided the support needed for INS enforcement agents to find, detain and remove illegal aliens, including those with terrorist associations."
House Republicans want to make certain this never happens again -- in Tulsa or anywhere else. Will the Senate stand with them?