Leopard bit Cesar Reyes' face hard! Assisted GOP OK governor's agenda. helped him get reelected. Deported in Feb

[Demovictory9]

https://www.kosu.org/politics/2025-06-30/federal-deportation-efforts-are-underway-in-oklahoma-as-state-local-agencies-help

Born in Guatemala and brought to the state at 16 to reunite with his parents, Cesar Reyes has studied and worked in Oklahoma City since, learning to call it home.

By his late twenties, he found himself advising Gov. Kevin Stitt as part of an ad hoc Hispanic Advisory Council the governor had assembled following his 2022 reelection.

He and Stitt took a selfie together when the council first met last year, which Reyes posted on Facebook, celebrating Latinos’ increased influence in the governor’s policy agenda.

“He basically said that we share the same values,” Reyes said. “And that he needed to be reelected again to protect those values of hard-working families... Of God-fearing people. And so we were there for him when he wanted our vote.”

Halfway through the 2024 legislative session, Stitt signed House Bill 4156, criminalizing anyone in the state without legal immigration status.

By November, Reyes was urging Latinos on Facebook to keep calm amidst the launch of Stitt’s initiative called Operation Guardian, which focuses on deporting unauthorized immigrants already in Oklahoma’s corrections system.

This February, Reyes was deported back to Guatemala. He has no criminal record.

“I was in shock,” Reyes