You would think that when a group of Oklahoma police chiefs condemn a law that will supposedly help that Republican lawmakers would listen.

But you would be mistaken.

Instead, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law that critics say will allow for blatant racial profiling and the targeting of marginalized communities in a rushed and poorly thought out effort to solve the nation’s immigration crisis.

When it takes effect July 1, House Bill 4156 is poised to breed paranoia among neighbors and sow distrust of law enforcement.

Oklahoma leaders recently created a new imaginary crime called “impermissible occupation.” It allows local police to arrest anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. First-time violators face jail time and have 72 hours to leave the state. Repeat offenders face prison time.

So basically, we won’t deport anyone, but rather, we’ll push our challenges with undocumented immigration onto our neighboring states. How nice?

Lawmakers spent considerable time laying out their position in the law.

Law enforcement, they wrote, comes into “daily and increasingly frequent contact with foreign nationals who entered the country illegally or who remain here illegally.” The bill notes it’s “particularly common” in regard to illegal marijuana grows. They write that those people are often involved in organized crime like fentanyl distribution or sex or labor trafficking. Lawmakers provided no data to back this assertion.

If we’re encountering people who are committing such horrible crimes, surely we’re already arresting them, right?  We don’t need a new law to tackle those problems.

“This crisis of unauthorized entry and presence is endangering Oklahomans, devastating rural, urban, and suburban communities and is severely straining even the most diligent and well-resourced state and local governmental entities, civil and criminal. It is imperative that the Legislature take steps to abate the crisis,” lawmakers go on to say.

The bill targets someone who is not a citizen or national of the United States.

Nowhere does the bill spell out how law enforcement is supposed to determine who to question about their alieness. It also doesn’t require that someone have committed a crime in order to be questioned.

That of course has led to speculation that people will be questioned based on the color of one’s skin, their apparent national origin or maybe even based on the language they speak despite the fact that we have no official language in this country. It seems unlikely that police are randomly going to ask a white person who sounds as American as apple pie if they’re a legal citizen.

One can only imagine the ham handed way a bigoted person in a position of power could utilize such a law to the detriment of us all. People of color are already hurt and killed by law enforcement at higher rates than white people.

Can you imagine the small-town police officer out there who’s just waiting for that bill to take effect because he’s long wondered if the person in town who looks different than everyone else, but keeps to himself, is a legal immigrant?

How do you prove you’re American enough? What’s to stop someone from saying a driver’s license is forged?

But that’s what happens when you meddle in things that you have no business getting involved in and you put politics over people.

Since signing the measure into law, Gov. Kevin Stitt has embarked on a publicity tour at local television stations. His appearances have doubled as a celebration of Oklahoma’s new way to tackle the border crisis at a time when a deeply-divided Congress and Democratic President Joe Biden have failed to act.

But they’ve also served as an opportunity for him to explain about yet another task force that he’s created. This one deals with state work permits and visas. As Stitt says it’s to “find ways to bolster our workforce and create opportunity for those who are here contributing to our communities and economy.”

Stitt argues that governors should have more authority over the visa process, which is a federal responsibility.

Last week, the Oklahoma Association of Chiefs of Police issued an unusual statement condemning the law.

They said it would discourage crime victims from interacting with police and “has the potential to destroy the connections and relationships we have built within our local immigrant communities and set us back for many years to come.”

“Further, HB 4156 brings forth legal challenges in fair and impartial policing and anti-racial profiling,” the group stated. “These unintended consequences may deteriorate public trust in law enforcement in already vulnerable communities, ultimately resulting in increased public safety concerns.”

A day later, close to a thousand Oklahoma residents — many of whom were Hispanic — converged on the Capitol to protest the law.

Participants said they found it offensive that some Republican lawmakers have referred to the people crossing our southern border as “terrorists” and drug traffickers. Perhaps, our lawmakers are forgetting they’re working just a few miles away from the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in recent U.S. history.

Indeed, such blanket generalizations about marginalized groups of people are not helpful.

They said Hispanics own businesses, attend college and work to make our state better.

Inside the Capitol, protesters papered a door to the Governor’s Office with hundreds of sticky notes that featured a broken heart image and a message that read: “I live in your district and opposed HB4156. You chose politics over people. You broke my heart.”

We have unnecessarily put politics over people in a racist attempt to solve our immigration woes.

And I fear it will not end well for any of us.