A coalition of business and community leaders in Oklahoma is calling on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Supporters launched the Reasons to Reform campaign Tuesday as part of a national effort to encourage Congress to work toward simplifying citizenship guidelines and creation of a guest worker program.
Republican state Sen. Brian Crain, whose Tulsa district includes a large Hispanic population, says the nation's immigration system is broken.
American Farmers and Ranchers president Terry Detrick says the current system actually encourages illegal immigration in the state because citizenship is difficult to achieve. He also says Oklahoma farmers want to diversify past wheat, corn and beans.
"These crops that they could diversify to, which could add a lot to our economy in the state of Oklahoma, require intensive labor, and it's seasonal," Detrick said. "The partisan political standoff has kept us from working on an acceptable immigration policy."
American Farmers and Ranchers is a bipartisan group. Their preferred immigration policy calls for a system of identification, classification and taxation, along with new authorization documents.
Statistics provided by the group indicate that immigrants make up 5.7 percent of Oklahoma's population and contribute $1.1 billion in taxes to the state. In 2014, immigrants earned $4.2 billion, more than 4 percent of all earnings.
