Every U.S. state, including Oklahoma, can generally lower their minimum wage, but stipulations apply.

The U.S. government last raised the federal minimum wage to $7.25 in 2009. States may adopt a lower minimum wage on paper, or decline to set a separate state minimum wage, but in practice residents must still be paid the federal minimum wage, barring extremely small-scale commerce.

States may also raise the minimum wage above the federal minimum, which almost two-thirds have done as of January 2026. Typically, nothing bars states from later reducing their minimum wage below the previously set amount. 

In Oklahoma, the minimum wage is explicitly set to the federal minimum wage of $7.25, though a minimum wage of $2 also exists for a small number of employers not covered by federal law. 

If passed in June, SQ 382  would raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2029.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Oklahoma Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims.

Sources

• National Conference of State Legislatures State Minimum Wages
• Congressional Research Service State Minimum Wages: An Overview
• Justia U.S. Law 2025 Oklahoma Statutes Title 40. Labor §40-197.2. Minimum wages established.
• U.S. Department of Labor Oklahoma
• Oklahoma Policy Institute SQ 832: Minimum Wage Increase

The post Is it legal to lower the minimum wage in Oklahoma? appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Eric Roath, 44, lives in Bethel, near the southeastern corner of Oklahoma. He’s a logger, husband, father to three boys, and loves to fish and show pigs. He thought he was too young to have a stroke – until Sept. 8 of last year.

Roath felt fine as he went to work, but he began feeling hot and nauseous, and experienced blurry vision.

“After that, I just don’t really remember much,” Roath said.

His boss drove him an hour and a half to McCurtain Memorial Hospital in Idabel, which doesn’t have a neurologist. But he was still assessed by one.

That’s because of its partnership with OU Health’s telestroke program, which allowed a neurologist in Oklahoma City to evaluate him and recommend clot-busting medication. Then, he was airlifted to the OU Health campus.

If 30 more minutes had passed, Roath said the intervention wouldn’t have worked.

“All the symptoms I had – I couldn’t hardly talk, couldn’t hardly walk, hardly no use on my left side – I guess that would have kind of hung around,” Roath said. “But now I’m pretty much back to normal.”

“They pretty much saved my bacon.”

Nearly 40% of Oklahomans live in rural areas, where stroke mortality rates are higher and access to specialized care is limited. Minutes can mean the difference between recovery and disability. Oklahoma officials are investing in telemedicine to help rural hospitals better evaluate and care for stroke patients.

Partnering with rural communities on stroke care

OU Health’s telestroke program was established in 2021, starting with a few sites, like the one in Idabel. A couple of years later, an $861,190 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture kick-started its rural telestroke network.

OU Health is using it to station telestroke carts equipped with a camera and computer screen at 23 rural facilities. It’s halfway through and has until next summer to spend the remaining money.

Dr. Shyian Jen is the program’s medical director. She said facilities can administer clot-busting medication on their own. According to American Heart Association guidelines, the time window for providing it is within 4.5 hours of symptom onset. Patients who receive this medication have a higher likelihood of only experiencing minor symptoms.

Jen said rural hospitals without telestroke services would call OU or a different system to talk with a neurologist over the phone. But this process was limited because recommending clot-busting medication involves a rapid review of imaging to ensure the patient doesn’t have a bleed, which could be worsened by it.

“Rural hospitals would rely on having a radiologist read it locally, and oftentimes they don’t have that arrangement. They don’t have a 24-7 radiologist to read that,” Jen said. “In that situation, a particular patient showing up in a hospital that did not have the services may have delayed treatment or moved outside of the time window where they can’t get treatment.”

She said the telestroke program helps rural facilities connect with OU Health’s Comprehensive Stroke Center team any time a patient with stroke-like symptoms enters their emergency room.

Rural providers run labs, start IVs and take patients for a CAT scan. Then, they notify OU’s transfer center, and the neurologist on call is paged. They log into a telehealth platform, where they can view patient images in real time.

From there, they log into the telestroke cart and use it to guide patient evaluations and treatment management. If a patient needs more care, OU Health can help facilitate it. But if they don’t, OU assists hospitals in keeping patients local. Jen said half of the patients served through this program have stayed in their local facility, thereby reducing unnecessary transfers.

Lane Manginell, the chief operating officer for McCurtain Memorial Hospital, said the critical access hospital in Idabel serves one of the largest counties by area in Oklahoma.

It can be difficult in medical emergencies, especially when that county includes tourist destinations like Broken Bow, where traffic adds to travel time. He said their emergency department sees around 15,000 patients annually.

Manginell said it takes the entire organization to implement new service lines. McCurtain Memorial heavily invested in its IT infrastructure to expand telehealth in the facility, which was built in 1974 and not designed for it. He said that was challenging, but partnerships like this are crucial for patient outcomes.

“We may never be able to support something such as a full-time neurologist or cardiologist here,” Manginell said. “… Being able to have those partnerships where patients can still get that care here locally has been critical.”

OU Health Virtual Care Program Manager Chelsea Yearout said it’s also important to ensure the partnership fits the facility. OU meets with them to learn their current workflows and see how they fit in. They provide education on stroke care and the telestroke cart to staff and offer to come to community events.

“We don’t want to come in and put an OU name on something and try to make it ours in a different location,” Yearout said. “We really want to partner with the rural communities, learn what their needs are and integrate our telestroke workflow into the work they’re already doing.”

Expanding telestroke through federal, state dollars

OU Health and other partners are working to make a difference in other rural communities by expanding telestroke. OU became a subrecipient of $499,555 in Rural Health Transformation Program funds this year. The federal grant program is awarding billions of dollars to states to improve health care in rural communities.

Dr. Jen said OU plans to expand beyond 23 sites to 30 total. She added that Oklahoma’s Rural Health Transformation Program telestroke projects are focused on acute stroke-ready certification and assisting hospitals in achieving a certain level of care.

The Oklahoma Hospital Association is also receiving $157,500 annually over three years from TSET to grow telestroke support in Oklahoma, benefiting 20 rural hospitals in the state.

Greg Martin, the association’s vice president of shared services and partner development, said these investments have worked in other states, like Arkansas. A statewide initiative that began in 2008 through the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences now digitally connects over 60 hospitals across the state with stroke specialists.

Over 94% of all Arkansans are within a 30-minute drive of a stroke-ready hospital. The program resulted in $59 million in cost savings for stroke care in 2022 and reduced the state’s stroke mortality rate.

“There’s so many pressures on not only hospitals, but to the state budget,” Martin said. “If there’s anything that we can do that, in the course of due diligence of taking care of patients, not only helps the patients, but saves the system as a whole and the state as a whole money, that’s a great thing.”

Martin said he hopes the association can offer materials to hospitals at no cost so they can raise awareness about strokes. Education, he said, has been at the heart of Arkansas’ success.

“What happened over the years is more and more people became aware of the signs and symptoms, and that drove people to the hospitals that have telestroke, and they were able to have quick, early interventions,” Martin said. “And that’s one of the key things that changed their state.”

Back in Bethel, Roath said Sept. 8 was a blessing in disguise. He’s managed his blood sugar, and now he doesn’t take insulin. It was also a gift for his family, who now have a future with their husband and dad.

“They was all real happy. I mean, it could have ended a lot different,” Roath said.

“Every rural community ought to have something like this.”

This story is part of a series produced in collaboration with La Semana, KOSU, The Frontier, Focus: Black Oklahoma, The Oklahoma Eagle and the Tulsa Flyer.

On a quiet stretch of land in the small town of Cement, Oklahoma, a modest white house sits just off the road, surrounded by farmland.

Inside, Brittany has set up a life that matters to her. A framed photo of her and her husband hangs in the entryway. Dozens of Legos and trinkets fill the shelves lining her living room walls.

Brittany — whose last name KOSU is withholding because she discusses suicide — moved to the rural Oklahoma town eight years ago and said she has gotten used to the slower pace of life that comes with it, making weekly trips into Chickasha for groceries. Still, there are moments when being out in the countryside can feel isolating.

This winter, during a stressful holiday season, the isolation hit a little harder than normal.

Following a difficult, lengthy visit from family members, Brittany said she was having trouble managing her emotions. Hurtful comments made by her mother-in-law were swirling in her head. In a moment of desperation, Brittany turned to her phone and looked up how many pills she would need to take to cause an overdose.

“My personal world just felt like it was imploding,” she said. “If I died I wouldn’t feel anything anymore. If I died I wouldn’t have this pain.’’

Brittany has struggled with suicidal ideation for years. It’s a symptom of her depression and histrionic personality disorder. She’s found a good mix of therapy and mental health medication to manage her diagnoses, but sometimes, everything boils to the surface.

This time, for the first time, Brittany clicked a link to text 988, the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. She knew she needed help, but the sun had already set, and the closest hospital was miles away.

“I texted 988,” she said. “To have someone else there, that was even just willing to listen in that moment … really helped.”

Brittany was one of thousands of Oklahomans who used the 988 hotline in November, adding to the increasing calls, texts and messages local operators logged in the past three years. The total includes callers who have self-reported to be citizens of 35 of the state’s 39 sovereign tribal nations.

Federal investments supported the launch and implementation of 988 nationwide in 2022, but ongoing funding for local call centers, as well as the development of other core components of the behavioral health crisis continuum, largely fell to state and local governments.

Since then, calls to 988 have increased more in Oklahoma than any other state, nearly doubling between 2022 and 2024.

For Derek LeMaster, who oversees Solari, the company in charge of picking up the calls, the increase is a sign people who need help are reaching out.

“There’s not a wrong time or a wrong reason to call,” he said.

In Oklahoma, officials have worked hard to prop up a system that works, according to Tony Stelter, who helps run the state’s mental health facilities for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

“The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration … they wanted someone to call, someone to respond and somewhere for folks to go,” Stelter said. “And we took that really seriously.”

Someone to respond

Tucked inside a tall office building in Tulsa, mental health professionals, case managers and therapists intermingle, each assigned to a cubicle with a landline and headset.

The group staffs a call center operated by local nonprofit Family & Children’s Services, and can be dispatched by 988 operators to emergency mental health crises in the area.

On a normal Wednesday in January, employees Rachel Wimp and Clara Anderson geared up to visit an 88-year-old woman who’d joked about killing herself on the phone with bill collectors.

Along with harm reduction supplies, like gun safety locks and drug deactivation kits, their car was stocked with a large plastic bag of cat food.

“Animals are a really big thing for people,” Wimp said. “And so that can be a great way to kind of bridge that gap.”

Anderson said mental health emergencies can look very different from person to person. She and Wimp have grown accustomed to thinking on their feet, but 988 dispatchers are good at providing them with details beforehand.

“You get a much bigger picture of people’s lives when you see them in person,” Anderson said. “Their environment, their social support, families — things that all really contribute to mental health.”

Anderson and Wimp are counselors and have been trained to de-escalate high-tension mental health emergencies and connect people to long-term care. During their visit with the cat owner, they helped her get plugged into case management at a senior service center in the area.

Between July and December, mobile crisis teams at Family & Children’s Services were dispatched to 573 calls.

The Department of Mental Health also partners with a dozen other mental health providers to create a patchwork of mobile response teams that can be dispatched to crises by state 988 operators. Still, agency officials report 90% of 988 calls in Oklahoma are resolved entirely over the phone.

988 and 911

Operators at the Oklahoma City Police Department’s 911 communications center have a direct line to transfer callers to the 988 hotline. It was the first of a growing list of local integrations at police departments being facilitated by the Department of Mental Health.

Management specialist Katherine Underwood said putting the systems together has opened the door for a new kind of response to mental health calls that come into the police station.

“When 988 was introduced, it completely changed the way we process calls,” she said. “Up until that point, we always sent an officer.”

Transferring mental health calls to 988 frees up emergency lines for other crises, Underwood said. It also helps reduce the total number of 911 calls the center receives, and means people are met with appropriate care.

“We’re a stopgap measure compared to a system that’s set up to truly focus on the client and their individual needs and follow up with them,” she said. “That’s what’s so great about 988.”

The state mental health agency has completed similar integrations at nine other 911 call centers and police stations. As a result, 40 mobile teams were dispatched to a scene with, and at the request of, law enforcement in February. In the same time, 73 calls that came into 911 call centers were transferred to the 988 hotline.

“No matter which street you take as far as dialing 911 or 988, you know that you’re going to be getting the services that you really need,” Underwood said.

During an interim study in October, Rep. Tim Turner, R-Kinta, estimated the 988 hotline saves Oklahoma taxpayers millions every year.

“Beyond its lifesaving reach, 988 also is a smart investment for Oklahomans,” he said.

A data analysis by Health Minds Policy Initiative, an Oklahoma nonprofit working to improve mental health across the state, found collaboration between Family & Children’s Services and 911 operators in Tulsa saved the city almost $110,000 in six months. Savings were split between the police department, fire department and the ambulance service EMSA.

Finding the funding

The federal government paid for the launch of 988, but states are expected to pick up the tab when funding runs dry in September. The federal bill that established the program recommended that states collect a telecommunication fee, which is how 911 is largely funded.

Only a dozen states have created fees, though. Oklahoma isn’t one of them.

Instead, the state mental health department reports the $5.7 million needed to keep the hotline running is included in its budget request to the legislature.

But whether the agency’s request is granted lies in the hands of lawmakers working with a tight budget, and Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has pushed for flat appropriations during his seven years in office.

Budget woes for the Department of Mental Health also run deeper than most state agencies. The department is still recovering from a multi-million dollar shortfall last year that resulted in the unprecedented firing of its former commissioner.

In another effort to keep the hotline running, Rep. Kevin Norwood, R-Owasso, is sponsoring a bill that would create a trust fund for 988.

“We cannot let 988 come to an end,” Norwood said in a press release. “This bill helps make sure there is a fund in place, so someone is always there to answer the call for Oklahomans who are struggling.”

His proposal is making its way through the legislature. Prior efforts to establish a telecommunication fee have failed. Norwood told Harvest Public Media there’s little appetite in the state legislature for a new tax.

‘Someone that cares’

For people like Brittany, finding a sustainable way to fund the 988 hotline in Oklahoma is important. She said being able to talk to a mental health professional, even though she lives in a rural county, saved her life.

“I would have stayed in that cycle,” she said, “and could have ended up harming myself.”

Oklahoma has one of the highest suicide rates in the country, and it’s increasing faster than the national average. Between 2013 and 2022, nearly 8,000 Oklahomans died by suicide, an average of two people every day. Rural communities held a burden of those deaths.

LeMaster from Solari said people who call 988 in Oklahoma have come to expect someone who understands what it’s like to live in the state, and what resources are available.

“This is somebody that understands our unique culture here and what it means to be an Oklahoman,” he said. “The grit that you have to have; the resilience that we have.”

Without state funding, local call centers, and the collaborations the state Department of Mental Health has established, could be lost.

“It’s free, it’s confidential and it’s someone that cares,” Brittany said. “I think that the more people who know about that, the better.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, you can dial or text 988 and be connected to help.

Oil and gas magnate Harold Hamm, one of the wealthiest people in America and a major Republican donor, called Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Thursday night, asking for the appointment to Oklahoma’s newly open Senate seat.

The governor is mulling multiple options, but according to three sources familiar with the matter, Hamm called Stitt to express his interest in the seat.

Hamm, the founder and chairman of Continental Resources, has been a longtime Stitt supporter and was considered President Donald Trump’s top energy whisperer during his first term. He also recently donated to Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom project.

A spokesperson for Stitt did not respond to a request for comment. A senior aide to Hamm and a Continental Resources spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump announced Thursday he wants to replace Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin.

According to Oklahoma law, whoever is appointed to the position would have to sign an affidavit saying they wouldn’t run for a full term. Then, in the next general election, Oklahoma voters will choose a new senator. Many Republicans have been floated to take Mullin’s position in the interim, including his longtime adviser Donelle Harder, Oklahoma businessman Dustin Hilliary, former Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor, Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell and former Trump administration official Alex Gray.

Reps. Kevin Hern and Stephanie Bice have already said they’re considering Senate bids, with Hern set to announce something next week.

Ed. Note: This story was updated on Mar. 6, 20-26 to include additional information.

This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and Oklahoma Watch.

The post Oil Tycoon and GOP Donor Harold Hamm Asked Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt for Senate Appointment appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Federal District Court Judge Gregory Frizzell found in 2023 that the poultry companies’ handling of chicken waste was contributing to pollution in northeast Oklahoma. At that time, he directed the companies and the state to figure out a plan to clean up the watershed and prevent future pollution.

They did not. So in December 2025, Frizzell issued a final order, directing each company to pay millions of dollars for cleanup and a special master to oversee it. The companies have filed appeals and requested stays of that ruling.

Now, several defendants have reached more favorable settlement deals with the state. But it’s up to Frizzell whether to approve those settlements.

In his Tulsa courtroom Friday, Frizzell considered the first of those agreements: the one between the state and George’s, Inc.

Frizzell expressed reservations about whether the settlement funds would be sufficient to cover George’s share of the cleanup. Although he said it had been difficult to determine each company’s fair portion of the cleanup due to recordkeeping at the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

The judge also questioned whether the seven-year plan outlined in the settlement would allow enough time for soil phosphorus levels in the watershed to improve. Frizzell cited expert testimony that it would take 30 years to reduce soil phosphorus to desired levels.

Although more money and time could allow for better restoration of the watershed, Drummond said the settlement “prioritizes finality, certainty and immediacy.”

When Frizzell questioned whether Drummond was bowing to political pressure, the attorney general said he was considering “political reality.” He warned that his time as attorney general is drawing to a close, and his successor may decline to fight appeals from the poultry companies.

In recent months, Drummond’s handling of the case has brought criticism from Gov. Kevin Stitt. He’s also received flak from former state lawmaker Charles McCall, who will appear alongside Drummond as a Republican candidate for governor on June’s primary ballot. The poultry litter case cost Drummond an endorsement from the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association.

Much of the criticism has focused on how the case will affect contract poultry growers in Oklahoma. They work with the large poultry integrators who stand to pay for watershed remediation.

Tyson, in particular, has said it will not enter new contracts with Oklahoma growers if forced to comply with Frizzell’s final order. Drummond said Oklahoma growers in the watershed have received written notices of contract termination from poultry corporations since that order was filed Dec. 12.

In the courtroom, an attorney for George’s said his client had been discussing this settlement with the state since before that order, and that breakthroughs started when the state began negotiating with individual defendants.

The entire group of corporations has been tasked with finding a path forward since early 2023. Drummond said they have been negotiating ceaselessly without success.

Next week, the court will hold a hearing for settlements with four more defendants: Cargill, Tyson, Cobb-Vantress and Peterson Farms. Simmons and Cal-Maine have not filed settlement agreements for court approval, although Simmons representatives sat with George’s legal team at last week’s hearing.

Frizzell has not yet issued a decision on whether to approve the settlement between George’s and Oklahoma.

WASHINGTON — Oklahoma has been home to at least 76 Indian boarding schools, more than any other state in the nation. Now, those schools are at the center of a new bipartisan push in Washington to uncover decades of hidden tribal history — history that has been long withheld by religious institutions and the federal […]

The post Cole leads bipartisan push to uncover history of Indian boarding schools appeared first on NonDoc.

When Yingchao Fan’s car rolled over on Interstate 40 in Sequoyah County during January’s snowstorm, he did what anyone would do: he called 911 for help.

But what happened next landed him in jail. According to the sheriff’s office and court records, Oklahoma Highway Patrol officers responded to the accident, but then asked questions about his immigration status. He explained to them that he was in the U.S. on a legal work permit and had an asylum case pending. That’s when they arrested him.

Fan, who is Chinese, later found himself posing for a mugshot and sitting in a Sequoyah County jail cell, records show. Ted Hasse, a federal attorney working on Fan’s case, said his client faces no criminal charges — not even a traffic citation. The troopers reportedly delivered him to the Sequoyah County jail on a detainer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Fan’s case is not an isolated incident. A key federal policy change, with robust cooperation from Oklahoma law enforcement, is transforming the state into one where detention is the default response to immigration status, regardless of a person’s documentation or whether they pose any threat or committed any crime.

“It’s such a weird turn of events for this person,” said Hasse. “First, there was the contact right where he called 911 because he’s had a rollover accident in a snowstorm. And they show up and it’s, ‘Prove your immigration status,’ which is just crazy for them to be doing.”

Fan’s case illustrates how a new federal directive is driving the arrests.

The mechanism

A July 8, 2025 document from the Department of Homeland Security titled “Interim Guidance Regarding Detention Authority for Applicants for Admission,” provided a new hammer for ICE-deputized Oklahoma law enforcement. In it, immigrants, legal or not, are the nails.

The directive reinterpreted sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act, reclassifying most recent immigrants as applicants for admission who are subject to mandatory detention. People like Fan, with a federal work authorization as well as a pending asylum claim, may not be released except by parole and are denied bond hearings before immigration judges.

“Effective immediately, it is the position of DHS that such aliens are subject to detention under INA § 235(b) and may not be released from ICE custody,” the directive states. It acknowledges that “this position is likely to be litigated.”

The enforcement push accelerated in May 2025, when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, supported by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, demanded that immigration agents arrest 3,000 people per day, as reported by Axios. Miller later confirmed the target publicly on Fox News, calling it a minimum and promising that the administration would “keep pushing to get that number up higher and higher each and every single day.”

He said the goal is 1 million deportations per year.

The decision reversed decades of precedent. On February 6, Judge Edith Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the arrests are legal. Although an appeal is pending, that ruling gave the green light to continued sweeps. Although previous administrations allowed immigrants to have bond hearings, the past is the past, Jones wrote.

“In contrast to past administrations, the current Administration has chosen to exercise a greater portion of its authority by treating applicants for admission under the provision designed to apply to them,” Jones’ opinion states.

“What this does is treat people who have been in the United States, potentially for years, as though they just arrived at the border,” Hasse said. “The client I was describing (Fan) had been in the United States. He went to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in LA County. He applied for asylum and walked out the door. He later applied for work authorization and was granted it. But the position that the administration takes is that the person is still removable based on the initial entry without inspection.”

Entry without inspection means entering the United States without passing through an official port of entry or without being examined/authorized by a U.S. immigration official.

In her dissent, Judge Dana Douglas underscored that the interpretation was extreme; hundreds of thousands in the U.S. faced imminent arrest.

“The Congress that passed IIRIRA (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act)  would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people,” she wrote. “And for what? The majority stakes the largest detention initiative in American history on the possibility that … Congress must have wanted these noncitizens detained—some of them the spouses, mothers, fathers, and grandparents of American citizens. Straining at a gnat, the majority swallows a camel. I dissent.”

The Enforcement Network

On February 15, Gov. Kevin Stitt announced agreements with ICE under Operation Guardian, a deportation initiative he first directed Commissioner of Public Safety Tim Tipton to design in November 2024.

“President Trump is fulfilling his promise of a secure border and removing those who are a threat to public safety,” Stitt said in a written statement. “We’ll be able to leverage our existing law enforcement infrastructure and federal resources to enforce the law and keep Oklahomans safe. There will be no haven for illegal immigrants who break our laws. We will uphold Oklahoma’s strong tradition of being a law-and-order state.”

The state-level agreements, signed by Stitt on February 18 and 25, deputized the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation, Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, and Oklahoma Department of Corrections. The federal 287(g) agreements allowed ICE to deputize state and local law enforcement to arrest immigrants. So far, 28 Oklahoma law enforcement agencies have active 287(g) agreements, up from just three prior to 2025. County sheriff’s offices and municipal police departments across the state have followed, with most agreements signed between September and January.

Stitt’s Operation Guardian report, written by Tim Tipton, Commissioner of Public Safety, harshly criticized immigrants.

“Needless to say, with the countless terrorists and criminals unleashed on our communities by the Biden-Harris administration, it is my professional opinion [that] criminal activity by illegal aliens presents a clear threat to public safety in Oklahoma,” Tipton wrote.

But immigration attorneys say the majority of people swept up have no criminal record at all.

“I would say it’s very low. Very low,” said Lorena Rivas, an immigration attorney, when asked what percentage of detained clients have criminal charges. “Several of them maybe have a traffic citation, but it’s very minimal, like no driver’s license, speeding, nothing violent. Definitely. I would say 30% or less.”

Sequoyah County, where the Highway Patrol detained Fan, entered its 287(g) task force agreement on October 17. Sheriff Larry Lucas said the county is limited to 20 ICE holds per month under the agreement and has hit that cap every month since the program began.

As for Fan’s case, Lucas said it was the Highway Patrol, not his deputies, who made the arrest. He said his deputies have an agreement to hold ICE detainees in the jail, but not arrest them. However, the OHP unit covering the area of Fan’s accident told Oklahoma Watch they have no record of it.

Alex Gavern, an assistant clinical professor of law at the University of Tulsa and an immigration attorney, said the Highway Patrol has become a primary arm of ICE enforcement in the state.

“ICE officers [are] often in the cars with the highway patrol officers doing training,” Gavern said, describing what he’s heard about enforcement operations.

The result, attorneys said, is that the character of who gets detained has fundamentally changed.

“I think we’re seeing far more people with no criminal record being picked up,” Gavern said. “We have seen and heard reports of people who had pending asylum cases, either in immigration court or with U.S. citizenship and immigration services, being picked up. We’ve heard of people who entered the United States as refugees being picked up while they had green card cases pending or were in the process of applying.”

The Legislative Push

Even as the enforcement system expands, Oklahoma legislators are moving to make law enforcement cooperation mandatory.

Senate Bill 2013, filed by State Senator Lisa Standridge, R-Norman, would require every law enforcement agency in Oklahoma to enter into a 287(g) agreement with ICE by September 1. Agencies would be required to maintain at least 25% of their certified peace officers, or a minimum of five officers, whichever is greater, trained and cross-deputized under the program.

“The Oklahoma Law Enforcement Accreditation Program (OLEAP) or any accrediting body recognized by the state shall review the agency’s accreditation status and may revoke or suspend accreditation for willful noncompliance,” Standridge’s proposed law states.

Standridge did not return calls for comment about her proposed new law.

“I don’t feel safer because they’re doing this.”

Alysha Prather

Introduced as part of an Oklahoma Freedom Caucus legislative package announced January 27, Standridge’s bill includes an emergency clause that would make it effective immediately upon passage.

Hers was one of several bills filed by the Freedom Caucus, a Republican legislative group advocating for anti-immigration legislation in Oklahoma. Caucus chair, Sen. Shane Jett, R-Shawnee, distributed a written statement touting the law’s intent to make Oklahoma safer.

Pushback

The fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents in Minneapolis sent shockwaves beyond Minnesota, reaching even supporters of aggressive immigration enforcement.

Stitt’s position on immigration enforcement appears to have shifted in recent weeks. While he announced the 287(g) agreements in February 2025 with tough rhetoric about there being “no haven” for immigrants who break laws, his tone changed notably by late January.

In a Jan. 26 interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Stitt criticized the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics following the Minneapolis shootings.

“Americans don’t like what they’re seeing,” Stitt said.

He said Trump was getting bad advice on immigration and questioned the goal.

“What’s the goal right now?” he asked. “Is it to deport every single non-U.S. citizen? I don’t think that’s what Americans want.”

Stitt did not address immigration enforcement in his final State of the State address on Feb. 3, focusing instead on tribal sovereignty issues and other priorities.

On a Saturday afternoon in late January, a small group of protesters gathered on a bridge in Norman that crosses I-35, holding signs opposing ICE enforcement. The demonstration reflected grassroots concern that stretched from Minneapolis to Oklahoma.

“The deaths of the two have been kind of in your face,” said Gina Payne, a retired Norman teacher of 34 years. “I think that’s illegal.”

Cynthia Teague, a Norman resident, connected the current situation to historical precedents.

“They’re attacking our neighbors,” Teague said. “They’re treating people inhumanely, they’re targeting them for no reason. It’s an echo of so many different actions we’ve seen in other countries. We know where this story goes, and I can’t just sit here and hope it doesn’t happen again.”

Aysha Prather, another Norman resident, voiced concern about the state’s role.

“I don’t feel safer because they’re doing this,” Prather said. “They have failed to make a rational immigration system, and their solution to it is terror in the streets of our cities, and it’s damaging to everything I can think of that’s important to me.”

The post Oklahoma Becomes ICE Arrest Hub as Federal Policy Drives Enforcement Explosion appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Karen Powers lived and breathed State Farm, even as she waged a decades-long battle with cancer.

“She did love State Farm,” said Cody Powers, her son.

Cody Powers said that his mother wore State Farm sweatshirts and T-shirts and entered every promotion the company offered. The family still had two pedal cars that Karen Powers won in a contest, and she purchased many of the diecast model cars that have long been core to the State Farm brand.

“To me, she was State Farm,” Cody Powers said. “Everything they said they stood for, that was her.”

When a storm destroyed the roof of Karen Powers’ Yukon home, her love for State Farm was not enough to prevent the insurance giant from denying the claim. It was one of hundreds of denied roof claims in Oklahoma that have come to light since early December, when Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced an intervention in a claim that has come to represent all of them.

In most of the cases, State Farm denied policyholders who had no connection to the company beyond paying their premiums. In the case of Karen Powers, Oklahoma’s largest writer of homeowners insurance targeted one of their own.

Nevertheless, laid low by cancer and the claim battle, Karen Powers continued on in the job that had provided her with a lifelong sense of meaning and purpose. She worked on the morning of the day of her final hospital admittance.

She died in hospice, a month later.

“She’ll Never Sell State Farm Again”

Shaun Powers, Karen Powers’ husband of 34 years, wasn’t 100% sure when his wife began working in a State Farm office because it was before the two met at church.

Perhaps as early as 1985.

Over the course of her career, Karen Powers worked in the offices of three State Farm agents as a kind of office manager with, eventually, duties of selling insurance herself. Shaun Powers clarified that State Farm agents are technically not State Farm employees and neither are those who work for State Farm agents. It’s more like being a freelancer. That said, he agreed with his son that Karen Powers had gone all in on the corporate messaging.

“State Farm was her life,” Shaun Powers said. “She felt that it was the best company out there that sold insurance.”

For all intents and purposes, Shaun Powers said, his wife was an agent. State Farm pursued her for years to make it official, he said, and the only substantive difference between his wife and the agents she worked for was the name on the door.

Selling homeowners insurance was practically part of the family business. Shaun Powers ran a construction company, and Karen Powers’ brother was a roofer. Once, when the Powers’ home suffered hail damage and State Farm offered a partial payout, Shaun Powers and his brother-in-law did the repair themselves.

All the while, there was the cancer.

Karen Powers was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, when Cody Powers was two years old, Shaun Powers said. Even then, the prognosis was not good: she hoped to live long enough to move into the Yukon home they had set their sights on purchasing and she wanted to see her son into kindergarten.

She got a lot more than that.

“She fought cancer for 28 years,” Shaun Powers said. “She fought so damn hard, and she saw Cody graduate from high school.”

The battle to give Karen Powers as much life as possible had left the years a blur, Shaun Powers said. He believed that it was in 2018 that the cancer got worse.

Breast cancer metastasized into Karen Powers’ bones, and then it moved into lymphoma. At that point, Shaun Powers said, the care was palliative: all they could do was maintain her quality of her life until she passed.

In 2020 and 2021, storms hit the Powers’ Yukon home. After the second storm, a story played out that was eerily similar to other stories Oklahoma Watch has investigated: the Powers’ claim was denied as their neighbors got new roofs without a hitch.

Truth be told, it was worse than a denied claim.

An out-of-state adjuster arrived to assess their claim, Shaun Powers said. Karen Powers stood on the porch as her brother and the adjuster engaged in a heated debate on the roof above her. They fought over whether the storm damage was new or old.

She could hear all of it, Shaun Powers said.

Karen Powers overheard the adjuster accusing her husband and brother of having failed to perform work with the money that State Farm had issued on the earlier claim.

Karen Power’s brother told the adjuster that he would take the claim to a public adjusting firm to seek a fair outcome.

Karen Powers shuddered at what the adjuster said next, Shaun Powers said.

“If you go to a public adjuster, I’ll make sure that she gets fired,” the adjuster said. “She’ll never sell State Farm again.”

“That absolutely killed her,” Shaun Powers recalled. “She couldn’t believe they would do her like that. But there were also bigger fish to fry in terms of staying alive as long as she could.”

It fell on Shaun Powers to take their case to the Edmond-based firm Coppermark Public Adjusters.

I’m Not Afraid of Them

Years before Greg Cannon ran a construction company and founded Coppermark, he served in the Middle East aboard the Navy’s last diesel-powered aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy. The experience informed his attitude toward the Oklahoma Insurance Department, with which Coppermark has had a long and litigious relationship.

“I’ve been to war, I’m not afraid of them,” Cannon said. “They’ve been coming after us for six years. What are they going to do? Yank our license because we were trying to help people when they weren’t? That’s a great story.”

Around 2015, when he was still running his construction business, Cannon began to notice a shift in strategy from insurance companies: what they were doing on claims wasn’t matching up with the policies they sold to their customers.

The fights over those discrepancies revealed Cannon’s true calling: public adjusting.

“I liked being able to help people who didn’t know they were being taken advantage of,” Cannon said.

Cannon established Coppermark and almost immediately reached out to Stephanie Lee, a roofing contractor and independent adjuster with extensive experience in hail, wind, and tornado damage. Lee had a perfect resume, Cannon said, and she was ideal as a partner in the public adjusting firm he was envisioning.

Cannon and Lee formed a partnership at the start of 2019. Coppermark now has a staff of eight and handles as many as 200 claims per year in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Missouri and beyond.

The problems with the insurance department started almost immediately.

A conflict with AAA over a 2017 roof claim resulted in the insurance department accusing Lee of representing a contractor as an adjuster. Coppermark filed suit to argue that Lee had been acting as an appraiser instead and was denied due process as she sought a hearing to address what felt like an insurance company–driven effort to stymie Coppermark’s relationship with its client, Cannon said.

Long before news broke of lawsuits alleging a widespread State Farm bad faith scheme to wrongly deny Oklahoma hail claims, Coppermark’s petition accused insurance companies and the insurance department of working in cahoots.

“The Oklahoma Insurance Department and insurance carriers are acting as co-conspirators in denying the public legal rights, stalling claims, and preventing policyholders from getting even basic repairs done to their property,” the March 2019 petition read.

Coppermark spent $30,000 to take the fight all the way to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, where a dismissal amounted to a stalemate, Cannon said.

300 Complaints

It was around that same time that Cannon and Lee noticed an uptick in denied roof claims, they said. It wasn’t just State Farm, it was everyone — but State Farm had most of the market share.

What they were seeing was insurers delaying claims as long as possible, ignoring laws that established deadlines for claim filings, inspections and decisions.

Those laws were supposed to be enforced by the insurance department.

Cannon recalled attending a meeting a few years earlier with insurance commissioner John Doak. Doak emphasized, Cannon said, that the insurance department became aware of bad practices only if they received complaints. As Doak described it, the department did not receive many complaints.

An attorney, Cannon said, suggested that Coppermark consider filing complaints about delayed roof claims in an attempt to head off unnecessary litigation. Perhaps the insurance department would take action.

“We were trying to prevent lawsuits,” Cannon said.

From late 2018 to the end of 2020, Coppermark filed approximately 300 complaints.

It Felt Like a Threat

One day in January 2021, Cannon said, as the full Coppermark team sat around a conference table, a call came in from the insurance department. Cannon put it on speakerphone.

The call was recorded.

The caller identified himself as Mike Rhoades with the insurance department, but did not otherwise indicate his position within the department. Today, Mike Rhoades is Commissioner Glen Mulready’s personal designee to the Oklahoma Employees Insurance and Benefits Board of the department’s group insurance division.

In a measured but hostile tone, Rhoades called attention to a great number of complaints that had come from Coppermark. Rhoades said that the complaints were being referred to the legal department for possible action. That was strange, Cannon said. What he meant was that the complaints were not being sent to the department’s market conduct team, which would have been the appropriate group to evaluate complaints.

“It felt like a threat,” Cannon said.

Lee recalled that she immediately had suspicions about the true nature of the call.

“I thought, ‘Who at State Farm asked them to make this call?’” Lee said.

The tense conversation continued for several minutes before a peculiar discrepancy popped up.

Cannon told Rhoades that Coppermark had been sending in complaints for years.

“Yeah, we know, we’ve got 50 of ‘em,” Rhoades said.

“Fifty?” Cannon said. “I’ve got 300!”

Rhoades then said the true number the department had received was “50-plus,” but the discrepancy went unresolved in the conversation. In the months to come, Coppermark would send the insurance department a pointed letter documenting the call, and the legal department would respond with a terse rejection of all of the complaints.

Leery of spending another $30,000 on a lawsuit, Coppermark set aside the 10 huge binders filled with the complaints they had filed. They began to suggest to their clients that they submit complaints directly, sometimes including materials prepared by Coppermark.

63 Months

In the years that followed, Coppermark handled hundreds of State Farm claims. Cannon and Lee testified in numerous State Farm legal proceedings as expert witnesses.

“Last year, we were in deposition four times one month on State Farm claims alone,” Cannon said.

In some of the depositions, State Farm attorneys attempted to discredit their testimony.

“They’ve done everything in the world to try to prevent us from helping their insureds,” Lee said.

State Farm did not respond to a request for an interview about Coppermark and the case of Shaun and Karen Powers. However, in December, the company issued a statement about Oklahoma homeowners claims that attested to close coordination with the insurance department.

Cannon and Lee did not think again of the peculiar 2021 phone call until December, when Oklahoma Watch began covering hundreds of bad-faith roof claims and the attorney general’s intervention.

Coppermark contacted Oklahoma Watch shortly after it published a story that included a November 2023 recording of Commissioner Mulready describing an ongoing investigation of roof claims.

The 2023 recording and the 2021 phone call appeared to overlap.

In the 2023 recording, Mulready said that the investigation had been undertaken because of an uptick in complaints. After several years in which complaints about a particular insurance company had remained flat, the department suddenly received 53 complaints in a single year, Mulready said. He did not indicate which year.

The numbers line up. In 2021, the phone call from Rhoades at the insurance department described 50-plus complaints. In 2023, Mulready specified 53 complaints.

In December, Mulready again referenced the investigation of roof claims in a press release responding to the attorney general’s State Farm intervention. That suggested an investigation that had lasted at least 28 months, which is significantly longer than a typical insurance department investigation.

The Coppermark complaints suggest that the investigation may be even older.

Lee was convinced. Even though their complaints had been denied, she believed the insurance department had relied on their complaints to launch an investigation.

“Yeah, 100% that uptick was because of us,” Lee said.

Lee and Cannon estimated that, at first, they had submitted approximately 20 complaints about State Farm electronically. When those went ignored, they started printing hard copies for their binders and sending them in via certified mail. There were 30 of those.

If Lee is right, then the insurance department’s investigation of roof claims, which Mulready has promised will be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2026, may have lasted 63 months.

Mulready refused an interview request for this story.

“This Job Has Been My Entire Life”

The storm that destroyed the home of Shaun and Karen Powers hit three months after the phone call that put an end to Coppermark’s strategy of flooding the insurance department with complaints.

Coppermark assisted Shaun Powers with his claim. State Farm issued a report that estimated the Powers’ replacement cost at $3,056.29. A Coppermark report estimated damage on two separate structures at $58,041.99.

Cannon and a State Farm adjuster conducted a joint inspection in December 2021. Two days later, State Farm rejected the Coppermark report.

“State Farm is not approving payment for replacing the roof surface of either structure,” a State Farm letter said.

It was all too much for Karen Powers, Shaun Powers said.

“She went downhill very quickly after that,” he said. “It was just one setback after another.”

He encouraged his wife to give up her job at a State Farm agency. By then, Shaun Powers said, as the number of denied roof claims coming through her office multiplied, Karen Powers had begun advising clients to move their business to independent agents.

But she couldn’t quit her job.

“She said, ‘I can’t lose my job. This job has been my entire life,’” Shaun Powers said.

In 2023, the family had Fourth of July plans. Karen Powers went to work on the morning they were to leave on vacation, and then visited a hospital for a blood transfusion that was part of her cancer treatment. A broken vial required additional blood to be drawn. The extra blood loss caused Karen Powers to pass out; she was admitted to the hospital.

“She never came home,” Shaun Powers said. “She never made it back to work.”

The final insult from State Farm came just hours after Karen Powers died, early on the morning of August 2, 2023.

Shaun Powers came home from the hospital at 4 a.m. State Farm called a few hours later.

They sent a check for $14,000 and canceled the Powers’ homeowners policy.

A Bag of Skittles

Greg Cannon has been left with sharp feelings about how insurance companies conduct their business in the absence of true regulation from the Oklahoma Insurance Department.

“They’re able to basically rape and pillage, unchecked,” Cannon said. “They can raise their rates, and they can do anything they want. They’re going to take Oklahomans’ money, and they’re going to pay out hurricane victims in Florida with our money while keeping their bottom line.”

Shaun Powers’ feelings, directed at State Farm, were even more visceral.

“You want to say that it’s water under the bridge,” Shaun Powers said. “But you know, God forgives and God forgets, but I don’t. I’ll eat a bag of Skittles and watch you burn in Hell.”

His resolve was all he had left.

“I can’t do anything, but I’ll never forget what State Farm did,” Shaun Powers said. “I’ll never forget how they treated my wife.”

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