Oklahoma schools leader Ryan Walters moves to require students to prove citizenship
Families enrolling children in Oklahoma public schools will have to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship under new rules approved Tuesday by the state’s education board.
Families enrolling children in Oklahoma public schools will have to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship under new rules approved Tuesday by the state’s education board.
The proposed regulation, which must be approved by the governor and the Legislature, would require school districts to track the number of students who cannot verify their immigration status and report those figures to the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
“Our rule around illegal immigration accounting is simply that; it is to account for how many students of illegal immigrants are in our schools,” Ryan Walters, the state superintendent, said at the Tuesday meeting of the Oklahoma State Board of Education.
Outside the building in Oklahoma City, dozens of students protested Walters’ immigration policies and called to keep deportation agents off school campuses.
Ryan Walters in Oklahoma City in 2023.Chris Creese for NBC NewsWalters — who gained a reputation in office for focusing on culture war issues and inviting right-wing influencers into state government — met resistance last year when he said he intended to ask school districts to help his office calculate the cost of illegal immigration on the public education system.
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