OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — For more than a month, midtown Tulsa City Councilor Jayme Fowler has been asking his colleagues to pass his Safe City ordinance which he says will prepare the City for what is likely to be future busloads of migrants coming to Tulsa.

Under Fowler’s Safe City ordinance, the City of Tulsa is prohibited from using any city taxpayer dollars for the benefit of illegal immigrants both directly and indirectly. Fowler’s reasoning for the City needing to prepare, especially during the council’s Public Works meeting on Feb. 28, is that the City is not ready for busloads of migrants to be shipped, and a load that size would damage both the City’s services and area nonprofits.

“There were a little over 2,300,000 that crossed the border, the southern border, for 2023,” Fowler said in the meeting on Feb. 28. “Denver alone had almost 40,000 last year brought to their city. If we had two busloads, that would overwhelm our low-barrier shelter.”

Fowler repeatedly describes a “wave of immigrants” coming to Tulsa, and multiple times he said he was concerned about buses of migrants being shipped to Tulsa.

“What this would do is we would literally not let these folks enter the City if they were being brought in on buses,” Fowler said.

However, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s Office (R) said there are currently no plans to ship any migrants from Texas to any city in Oklahoma.

“I know Governor Abbott personally, and we don’t see that coming into Oklahoma,” Stitt said. “I don’t know exactly what he’s talking about, but we don’t see that being an issue.”

Stitt went on to say that Oklahoma has a great relationship with Texas, especially when it comes to fighting illegal immigration together.

He spoke with FOX23 while volunteering his time at an East Tulsa weekly food giveaway where many of the recipients are Latino families. The organization, which FOX23 is not naming in this story and did not want to be dragged into a political discussion, simply provides fresh fruits and vegetables to anyone in need. No questions are asked about their private lives and personal histories.

FOX23 reached out to Abbott’s office and asked if there were any plans to ship migrants to Tulsa or anywhere in Oklahoma, and they said no. The specific cities that have declared themselves to be sanctuary cities are going to continue to be targeted to receive the busloads of migrants. No city in Oklahoma was listed in their target plan.

“Texas still continues to bus to Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, and Los Angeles,” a brief statement from Abbott’s office said.

In late January, FOX23 received multiple phone calls and emails from viewers about a large group of Latino people walking from Claremore to Tulsa through Catoosa. Many people who reached out said the group was just dropped off in Tulsa by Abbott to start a new life because Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum declared Tulsa to be a “Welcoming City” which some believed was coded language for Tulsa being a sanctuary city.

However, once FOX23 caught up with the group as they walked, they turned out to be Tulsa residents, mostly of Latino heritage, who were legally in this country doing a prayer walk to honor the Virgin Mary.

FOX23 spoke with Danny Rodriguez, a staffer at Saint Thomas Moore Catholic Church, about what it was like walking while many people presumed they had been dumped in Tulsa.

“Throughout the walk, there were many people honking their horns and saying negative things, and many people think they are doing a protest or a manifestation of something,” Rodriguez said.

Bynum also took to social media that same month to say that Tulsa being a “Welcoming City” meant the City was celebrating people who have legally immigrated into the U.S. and were trying to start a new life in Tulsa.

Bynum spoke about the criticism of the “Welcoming City” designation and the services set up for legal immigrants.

“I just think that is completely unfair to the immigrants in our community who have done everything the right way,” Bynum said.

However, not everything Fowler points to as the reason Tulsa needs a Safe City ordinance is false. Fowler repeatedly points to one city on Abbott’s list that has seen financial hardships because of how they cared for the migrants shipped by Abbott, which is the City of Denver.

“They spent $180 million on illegal immigrants,” Fowler said. “The governor of Texas sent those people to Denver.”

Last month, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced the City was in a multi-million dollar financial hole because of all of the services it provided to the migrants shipped there. The City is having to make up the financial loss through cuts to services.

The City of Denver spent $46 million just on hotel lodging and other accommodations to get migrants who were shipped to them off the streets. It also spent $5 million dollars on bus tickets, some costing as much as $300 per person, to ship some migrants out to other parts of the country.

Johnston said the City was expecting some reimbursement for their expenses of caring for migrants from the Federal government, but no way to be reimbursed for those costs currently exists or is being proposed at the Federal level, especially in Congress.

While shipping out migrants from Denver, neighboring cities like Colorado Springs held a news conference in which they pleaded “don’t come here” to any migrant considering their City. City leaders specifically said there were no resources for migrants, and they would not be opening any up to migrants partially because they couldn’t afford to do so.

It’s Colorado Springs’ perspective on how to handle the problem that had south Tulsa City Councilor Phil Lakin tell Fowler at the same meeting on Feb. 28 that there are ways to safeguard Tulsa city funds under the current system already in place.

“We get budget amendments in here all the time,” Lakin told Fowler. “If we see some city department try to go rogue, we can take back those dollars any time.”

Lakin said Denver’s city leaders carried out their feelings on immigration policy when they opened their wallets to programs benefiting illegal immigrants.

Lakin went on to say that city councilors in Tulsa could easily do the same in the opposite direction and restrict funds going to programs that help migrants should there be a flood of immigrants that come to the City wanting access to services and other programs.

“We are a council that controls the budget,” he said. “So, if we don’t want to do things with the money the City has, then we can cause that to happen through our budgetary power.”

Fowler said he was concerned if the City did not crack down before migrants got here, then nonprofits that receive grants from the City to carry out specific needs within the community could easily be overwhelmed.

“It’s better to build the dam before the flood,” Fowler said.

But multiple other councilors expressed concerns about requiring religious organizations and nonprofits to check IDs and ask for immigration status before a person in need could be given something as basic as a bag of groceries or a cup of soup.

The debate at the City of Tulsa comes at the same time the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed House Bill 3071m which strengthens current state law that already prohibits state funds from being used to the direct benefit of illegal immigrants.

The bill had to be brought back to the House after initial passage in order to add an amendment that does not restrict law enforcement agencies from investigating and acting on human trafficking and domestic violence incidents.

“This does not stop a nonprofit or a religious organization from serving someone in need,” State Representative Neil Hays (R-Checotah) said about his bill.

Hays went on to say it does not require nonprofits and religious organizations to check someone’s status before receiving basic needs such as food. He said an organization will not qualify for any kind of special tax incentives or status if it discovers it is doing business with an illegal immigrant and continues to do so.

Hays spoke about applying HB 3701 into law and how some entities simply don’t check their status when carrying out their mission or purpose on a daily basis.

“I work in insurance, and I’ve never asked anyone about their immigration status when setting up a policy,” Hays said.

The law would not force them to change their procedures or change the way they do business either. It would only make them ineligible for tax benefits if they continued serving an illegal immigrant after their status had been discovered.

The Oklahoma House passed HB 3071 68-24, and it goes to the State Senate for consideration.