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 Feb. 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 Feb. 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 lawand-order state.” The state-level agreements, signed by Stitt on Feb. 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 2025 and January 2026.
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 Oct. 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.
Introduced as part of an Oklahoma Freedom Caucus legislative package announced Jan. 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.”
