A statewide plan to identify, arrest and deport unauthorized immigrants living in Oklahoma is formally underway. And Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton is leading the charge.
It’s called Operation Guardian. Governor Kevin Stitt announced it in November, days after President Trump won the general election, and appointed Tipton to its helm.
Two weeks after Stitt’s executive order mandated him to, the public safety commissioner—– via a press release from Stit’s office — published his plan to help enforce Trump’s mass deportation policy agenda.
In the report, Tipton writes the operation, which involves law enforcement at every level, specifically targets individuals involved in organized crime and human and drug trafficking while in the country without federal permission.
He lists a tiered approach to tackling the issue, which begins with the deportation of 525 unauthorized immigrants already arrested on state charges and held in the state’s correctional system.
A vast majority of them are Mexican nationals convicted of non-violent drug crimes and violent crimes against children.
The provided breakdown of individuals in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (ODOC) system by crime and country of origin is below:
By crime:
- 139 (27%) non-violent drug crimes
- 11 (2%) non-violent property crimes
- 103 (20%) violent assault crimes
- 38 (7%) violent sex crimes
- 159 (30%) violent crimes against children
- 75 (14%) violent crimes resulting in death
By country of origin:
- 377 (72%) Mexico,
- 40 (8%) Guatemala,
- 35 (7%) Honduras,
- 7 (1%) Vietnam
- 66 (12%) Other
Next come people detained on local charges in county jails, who already have been flagged by federal immigration authorities — or are likely to be flagged, Tipton writes.
The final priority is people who have been deported after a prior felony and are arrested again when they re-enter the country illegally.
Operation Guardian relies on existing state and federal law, not currently paused by federal courts.
Still, the federal lawsuit over Oklahoma’s House Bill 4156, a measure criminalizing anyone in Oklahoma without a legal immigration status is being reconsidered by Trump’s revamped Department of Justice.
The law was passed by lawmakers last session and is one of several similar ones held up in court nationwide.
Elissa Stiles is an immigration attorney at the Rivas and Associates law firm based in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
She originally sued the state on behalf of the private plaintiffs Padres Unidos de Tulsa over House Bill 4156, but the case was combined with the federal government's because it repeated arguments the DOJ was making in its own case.
Around the time Stitt announced Operation Guardian last year, Stiles said her team may have to fight the case by themselves, if the federal government decides to leave Oklahoma alone under a second Trump administration.
“If the Department of Justice pulls out of the lawsuit, we may have to relitigate and have the court decide again about the preliminary injunction,” Stiles said. “But based on the motion that was put forth by me and my clients.”
And from how Tipton writes about it, the DOJ dropping the case is exactly what he expects to happen.
“Oklahoma has already enacted the innovative impermissible occupation law,” Tipton writes. “Oklahoma’s prohibition against impressible occupation will prove to be an invaluable tool to mitigate the threats to Oklahoma presented by criminal illegal aliens, once the injunction is lifted in the federal proceedings.”
The law’s enforcement could mean thousands in Oklahoma without legal immigration status and no prior criminal record suddenly being at risk of investigation, detainment and administration into the state's correctional system as criminals.
In the report, Tipton explains that a truly comprehensive implementation of Operation Guardian also means federal enforcement of new laws enacted by Congress, Trump’s executive orders and local-level training for law enforcement officers carrying out new immigration policies.
Tipton mentions the operation will also look into addressing the issue of hundreds of thousands of migrant children who were ‘released’ into the U.S. by the Biden-Harris Administration, according to a congressional Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement.
He says such children would be at risk of human and sex trafficking in Oklahoma.
