Mayor Craig Thurmond addressed President Trump at the beginning of the month with an argument in favor of the proposed border wall.
Broken Arrow Mayor Craig Thurmond has written a letter to President Trump in favor of the border wall, likening the increased border security to fences around residential homes or a gated community: “Some citizens choose to live in gated communities for security reasons. I believe it is time to deviate from partisan politics and commit to doing what is best for the American taxpayers,” Thurmond writes at the letter’s conclusion.
Thurmond first publicly addressed this letter to President Trump on Jan. 9, 18 days into the longest government shutdown in the nation’s history. Jan. 9 also saw Thurmond participate in a White House conference call on the topic of border security. This was one of five large-scale conference calls of four hundred or more local government officials across the nation that Thurmond has been a part of during the last 10 months.
Discussing his decision to support the border wall, Thurmond commented that although he has “worked with a lot of immigrant workers and [knows] their importance,” he prioritizes the “public safety” of the residents of Broken Arrow as its mayor.
Mayor Thurman is not the only politician in Oklahoma to come out in support of President Trump’s border security and immigration policy. Gov. Kevin Stitt, during a Muskogee County Republican forum in July of last year, stated he fully supports President Trump’s immigration policy. Stitt commented that “strong borders” are necessary for Oklahoma and that “[we] have to be a state of laws. […] We will not have sanctuary cities. We’ll have to tell our law enforcement that they’re going to have to enforce the laws.”
Echoing the sentiments of Mayor Thurman and Gov. Sttit, Rep. Markwayne Mullin took to Twitter following President Trump’s Jan. 9 speech to comment that “[every] American inside our borders is worth protecting and [that he] will stand with the president in his continued efforts to build the wall and secure our borders.” Rep. Mullin has also started using the hashtag #borderbeard to chronicle the growth of his political protest beard, tweeting “[he’s] sticking with [his] #borderbeard until we #SecureOurBorder.”
In a response to this same Jan. 9 speech by the president, Sen. Jim Inhofe tweeted that “the Democrat obstruction to his border wall is about putting politics over policies that will protect American families from drugs, human trafficking and crime.”
Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, contrasting with many other state politicians, has been notably open to accepting immigrants into the city of Tulsa and even launched “The New Tulsans Welcoming Plan” in November of last year to improve the services available to immigrants arriving in the city. In a 2017 press statement, Bynum wrote that “I want our immigrant community in Tulsa to feel safe, feel welcome and feel this is a place of opportunity for future generations of their families.”
