Oklahoma’s governor on Trump, immigration and tribal lands

What It Covers

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, a Cherokee Nation member and National Governors Association chair, speaks with NPR's Steve Inskeep about federalism, immigration reform, tribal sovereignty disputes, and the Republican Party's direction after Trump, drawing on his experiences governing a state that ranks third nationally in ICE criminal deportations.

Key Questions Answered

• •State-controlled workforce permits: Stitt proposes that individual states — not the federal government — issue three-year work permits tied to employer sponsorship. Workers with a verified job pay taxes, lose status if they break laws or use public benefits, and remain deportable. He argues this model, already functional in other countries, would eliminate most illegal immigration enforcement complexity.
• •Immigration economic reality: Stitt describes rural Oklahoma Trump voters privately admitting that undocumented workers — some present for 15 years, attending local churches, enrolling children in schools — are essential to their construction, farming, and hospitality businesses. Removing them would be economically devastating, yet no legal pathway exists for these workers to regularize their status.
• •Federalism as a governing framework: Stitt argues states should retain authority over education, infrastructure, policing, and workforce policy regardless of which party holds the White House. He cites Oklahoma's practice of sending cabinet secretaries to meet federal counterparts three times annually — even under Biden — as a model for maintaining productive state-federal relationships across administrations.
• •McGirt ruling creates dual legal standards: The 2020 Supreme Court McGirt decision, decided 5-4 with Justice Gorsuch as the deciding vote, reclassified much of eastern Oklahoma including parts of Tulsa as reservation land. Stitt argues this creates racially unequal tax obligations and criminal sentencing — citing two men convicted of identical crimes on the same day receiving 20 years versus three years based solely on tribal enrollment status.
• •Policy pendulum damages long-term investment: Stitt uses the Keystone Pipeline and a Rhode Island offshore wind project — 90% complete after eight years of permitting — as concrete examples of how successive administrations reversing each other's energy decisions destroys developer confidence. He frames consistent, politically neutral regulatory environments as a prerequisite for attracting long-term capital investment in any sector.