Oklahoma’s State Board of Education just voted for a proposal to have parents report their legal status when enrolling their children.
This would identify whether a parent is an illegal, which would both help the school make sure they are using their resources appropriately but would also help ICE find and deport illegals in the state.
This according to Politico:
Oklahoma may require parents to report their immigration status when enrolling children in schools.
“We’re not going to allow sanctuary schools here in Oklahoma,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Tuesday afternoon.
The Oklahoma State Board of Education voted early Tuesday to approve the proposal to have parents report their legal status. The change would help determine that educational resources are being allocated appropriately, according to Walters.
But the push to collect this information is also part of a greater effort to help ICE find and deport undocumented migrants, according to Walters.
“It’s so important for the Trump administration to have the data — where are the families, where are they located — and when they’re making these decisions, I know that they want to keep the families intact,” Walters said, referencing the Trump-era “zero tolerance” policy that separated thousands of families at the U.S.-Mexico border.
When pressed about whether schools would be collecting information on parents or on their children, Walters said “all of the above.” He added that information would be turned over to ICE depending on the needs of the Trump administration, and that school raids could occur “if President Trump sees fit.”
“We answer to the taxpayers of Oklahoma, and they deserve to know how many illegal immigrants are in their schools,” Walters said on CNN.
This new policy will definitely poison the well and keep illegals with children from choosing Oklahoma as the state in which they choose to live. They’ll never enroll students if they think they are going to be turned over to ICE and deported.
But just as importantly, taxpayers shouldn’t be funding the education for illegals and their children. That’s a crucial principle in all of this, even if it does feel a bit icky.