City Council - Regular Meeting

And so I'm thinking, I need to really read through this. But my initial thoughts are, we need to avoid the image that And I want to make sure we don't give, you know, the area community, we don't present confusion. It's okay if you're unlawful in Norman, Oklahoma. We don't want to do that. This implies that there's consequences at the state level and the federal level to each of us in this room that took an oath. So I need time to look through it.

Really, there's three groups. There's citizens, there's legal permanent residents, and then there's unlawful residents. And if we're doing anything under this to imply, encourage unlawful residents to remain, we've crossed that line. And if we've done anything to make Norman more attractive to unlawful residents, we've crossed that line. There are consequences for that.

The sanctuary city aside, I don't care about that term. The thing I'm concerned about is if we encourage a tract that's okay to be an unlawful resident and we don't... We're not only doing damage to the unlawful resident, because the longer they're staying in the United States without being a lawful resident, the worse it is for them to become a lawful permanent resident or to become a citizen. I mean, there's damages that, just like, you know, if it was my neighbor or someone I met and they were asking me, say, look, if you're not here legally, you're just hurting yourself as it relates to tr

I want to go back on on safety. So. I think citizens have the same problem. victim of the crime or someone who observed the crime? I think all three categories. I think, yeah. So why distinguish one category out from the other two?

I'm aware of those concerns, talking to people that I know.

It's also a concern of mine if people are interacting with unlawful residents Saying it's okay. It's okay.

I know a lot of people that are here that are both legal permanent residents. I've always asked them, hey, why don't you go to a nationalization? They don't want to. OK, fantastic. And I know a lot of people that are here unlawful in it when I tell you, hey, look, you're only hurting yourself. Let me tell you why. Because your chance of becoming a legal permanent resident to get that green card, you're hurting yourself. And there's multiple ways to get your green card. There's multiple ways to get sponsored or co-sponsored. So as a city, if we're implying that it's okay, we're only hurting the

How did this even come up? I mean, did someone present it to you?

Let's say outside of Norman. Let's say they live in Norman. You're an unlawful resident that you live in Norman. And you go outside of Norman and you're stopped. You don't know. You don't know what's going to happen. And the people in Norman, you tell them if they're an unlawful resident, you tell them that, hey, it's okay. We're giving them false sense of security.

I think it can be implied, depending on how this is worded. Last one, it was implied. To me. To me.

Yes. Before I would be one to... Vote yes on this item. The one thing that I would need to remove for sure is number 17, section 3, the last little bit of that, and the process for submitting complaints to the Norman Human Rights Commission. I believe that we have a bylaw and kind of an oversight of what that commission's job already is that's been created. Most of those definitely volunteer community members. kind of join that commission based on what they knew they was getting into based on those bylaws. And adding something like this, I mean, it's the person that has this complaint needs to

It's not in the bylaws of what they signed up for and that our city knows that commission does currently.

I agree that we should change a whole lot of things in this town, but we have bylaws for a reason.

I just told you why I went vote for it. That's all I did. Okay. I'll just run my suggestion. I know you're the author of it. I don't have to debate it with you right now. I just told you my concern of it.

When I still read this through quickly, the root of it is public safety. So why would you identify a particular community when it applies to all communities? You know, it applies to citizens, it applies to legal permanent residents, it applies to unlawful residents. There are people out here that are citizens that don't want to call.

An alternative was given. And did you get any comments from the alternative No term resolution.

Okay. Thank you. PERSONNEL, ALL PEOPLE, WHETHER YOU'RE A CITIZEN OR A LEGAL PERMANENT RESIDENT OR UNLAWFUL RESIDENT. IT'S A MUCH SIMPLER READ THAN THIS, RICK. IT'S A MUCH SIMPLER READ THAN THIS. I DON'T SEE ANY COMMENTS FROM ANYONE.

Council Member Bruce. The sheer act of just the act of having a resolution on this, if it causes any type of encouraging an unlawful residence to remain here in the United States, or to make it more attractive to remain here in Norman, we're doing that individual a disservice. Why I say that? Because the longer that you're in the United States, unlawful presence can or will create Significant barriers or hardship trying to get legal permit rights. Even if you meet one of the categories and you're sponsored, hey, look. So, you know, if someone came to me and said, look, if you're unlawfully hon

I would like to then read the bylaws Article 5, Section 2, submitting a complaint. A person claiming to be held to discriminatory practice or act in retaliation herein may file in the city clerk's office a written complaint on a form that is approved by the HRC. That is then sent over to legal and then HRC is able to set in on the meetings that legal is having to discuss an outcome as possible. So right now they have to file it with, the city. It's not filed to them. This is saying it goes straight to them.

I'm just saying to protect ourselves, we want to say exactly where they file it to and not put the legality on HRC if somebody tried to come back and say they didn't follow a procedure right.

Because I do believe... The bylaws, I mean, have them at the table. That's what I'm saying, though. But I'm saying that it's in the bylaws. I'm just saying following the bylaws of the committee, no.

So the... about it on the slides. It was passed out. I also sent it to an individual's email. It's something to think about. So how do we ensure that the alternate gets passed to every member? Are they going to be emailed? Is it going to be posted online? How is that going to happen?

So your new draft, so your new draft's going to be in there as well? Yeah. Okay, and then the alternate that was a couple meetings ago, and then the original, is that going to be in there as well? So I can follow the history?