Parents enrolling children in Oklahoma public schools will be required to provide proof of their child’s US citizenship or legal immigration status under a proposed rule approved Tuesday by the state board of education.
The board voted unanimously to approve the rule aimed at helping Donald Trump’s immigration policies. It still needs to be approved by the legislature and the governor.
The rule requires parents or legal guardians to provide proof of citizenship of their children when enrolling them in public school, including a US birth certificate, US passport, consular report of birth abroad, permanent resident card or other legal document.
The proposed rule would not prevent students without legal status from enrolling or keep them from attending school. But it would require districts to record the number of students for whom proof of citizenship was not provided and to report those numbers, excluding personally identifiable information, to the Oklahoma state department of education.
Republican state superintendent Ryan Walters, the state’s education chief, said the rule is needed to help schools gather information about where to place staff and resources.
“Our rule around illegal immigration accounting is simply that,” Walters said. “It is to account for how many students of illegal immigrants are in our schools.”
There are an estimated 90,000 Oklahoma residents without legal status, including an estimated 6,000 children enrolled in schools in Oklahoma, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank focused on improving immigration policy.
While the board met, hundreds of students and protesters gathered outside the administration building to protest the board’s decision.
The plan has been sharply criticized by teachers and civil liberty groups, and is causing fear within Oklahoma’s immigrant communities, said Arturo Alonso-Sandoval, a Democrat who represents Oklahoma City’s heavily Hispanic south side.
“The community is scared, obviously,” Alonso-Sandoval said. “The conversations I’ve had with parents, all they’re doing is trying to provide the best opportunity for their kids, like any parents. They are starting to question: do I unenroll my child from school?”
Javier Terrazas, a construction worker from south Oklahoma City with an elementary school-aged daughter, said he’s noticed how fearful some residents are when they go to pick up their children.
“Seeing the parents’ faces, the look of fear when I go to pick up my daughter,” he said while protesting the board’s decision. “Everybody is looking over their shoulder. I’ve never seen that.
“It’s tough seeing that. It’s heartbreaking.”
At Oklahoma city public schools, one of the state’s largest districts, Superintendent Jamie Polk said in a letter to parents and staff last month – after the rule was first proposed – that federal law guarantees every child’s right to a public education, regardless of immigration status.
“OKCPS does not, nor do we have plans to, collect the immigration status of our students or their families,” she said.
Walters has said he will support efforts by Trump to enforce immigration laws, including by allowing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into Oklahoma schools.
He reiterated that position on Tuesday, saying the department stands ready to share any immigration information it gathers with law enforcement partners.
“If a law enforcement official comes in and asks for information, we’re legally required to provide that information,” he said. “If they come and ask us for certain information, we’ll happily provide that.”
Walters has spent much of his first term in office attacking what he describes as “woke” ideology in public schools, requiring Bible instruction in classrooms and attempting to ban books from school libraries.
A 5-4 US supreme court ruling in 1982, known as Plyler v Doe, affirmed the right of children living in the country illegally to attend public schools, although some conservative lawmakers have questioned whether immigrants without legal residency should have the right to a public education.
Alabama attempted to require public schools to ask the immigration status of students as part of a sweeping immigration law in 2011, but the state ultimately agreed to permanently block those provisions after a federal appeals court temporarily halted them.
Immigration experts say attempts to undermine the Plyler decision should be taken seriously, pointing to recent supreme court rulings that have overturned longstanding precedents on abortion rights and affirmative action in higher education.
