Governor Kevin Stitt (R-OK) shared with Washington Examiner on Friday that he had a plan to be quick deport more than 500 convicted illegal immigrants in its prisons as soon as trump card takes office in January 2025.

“We want to be the first state to work with President Trump,” Stitt said in a phone call.

“Right now, we have over 500 people incarcerated in Oklahoma who have broken the law, who are criminals and also are illegal,” Stitt said. “We’d like to get them out of the state of Oklahoma, out of the country.”

Exactly 526 criminal illegal immigrants are in Oklahoma prisons as of Friday. The state pays $36,000 to host them each day, according to the governor’s office.

Stitt wants to turn them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement before their sentences expire.

“We’re going to hand them over immediately to get them out of here,” the governor said. “I don’t know how any man from Oklahoma could argue with me. I don’t think about it, and I don’t know how the American would think that this is not very reasonable.”

However, the pilot program could upset crime victims who feel their perpetrators are not paying for their crimes with an early release.

Naida Henao, head of engagement for an organization that helps crime victims recover, told the Washington Examiner on Friday that the impact of the Oklahoma plan could cause unease among survivors.

“It would vary a little bit from client to client, survivor to survivor, because people have different preferences,” said Henao, of DC Victim Recovery Network. “However, what we’ve found in general is that people actually feel less safe when people are deported.

“The reason for that is if someone is in prison in California, for example, I, as a survivor, know where they are,” Henao said. “I get updates on any possibility of release, parole, etc. I’m kept up to date basically as far as their location and any changes to their respective plans. If someone is deported, I don’t know where they are. They could be in the country they were deported to. He could be on his way back. He could have returned to the country. It could be in my neighborhood. No one knows and no one can update me.”

The Oklahoma effort coincides with Trump’s campaign pledge to kick off large scale deportationsstarting with those convicted of crimes and the approximately 1.3 million people who have been ordered deported and are still in the United States. Trump named former ICE chief Tom Homan as his administration’s “border czar” to kick off the effort.

Oklahoma’s pilot program, called Operation Guardian, will be led by Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton.

Tipton said he is considering working with local and state police in the state to transfer criminal illegal immigrants in ICE custody and to pursue others in the state who have criminal records.

“Oklahoma has found itself in circumstances where the current open border policy has flooded our state with a transnational criminal element that our citizens should not be exposed to,” Tipton wrote in a statement. “I am currently working with the leadership of our law enforcement partners to fully develop our operational strategy to be ready for implementation as soon as the new administration takes office.”

If successful, it could be duplicated in other states.

It’s unclear whether ICE has the detention space to hold the more than 500 detainees while they go through deportation proceedings. Immigrants arrested in the US by ICE are usually held in custody while their cases are decided by federal immigration judges.

Prisoners will be deported to their countries of origin. Stitt did not mention whether there would be any effort to see immigrants finish their sentences after removal, but statewide cases would essentially be closed.

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The effort could reduce the amount of money needed to house illegal immigrants in jail by more than $1 million a month if all 526 inmates were turned over to ICE.

“We’re not asking for more ICE agents,” Stitt said. “We’re just saying, ‘When we catch criminal activity, we’re going to turn them over, we’re going to turn them over to the feds,’ and we know a Trump administration will do the right thing and deport them.” them.”