Oklahoma Proposes Chilling New Rule For Immigrant Children

It's straight out of the Project 2025 playbook.

The Oklahoma State Department of Education proposed a new administrative rule on Tuesday that would require school districts to collect data on undocumented students in the state. The agency that oversees the state’s public and charter schools announced the proposed rule about a month before President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised an unprecedented crackdown on undocumented immigrants, is back in the White House.

In 1982, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Plyler v. Doe that schools must enroll all children, regardless of their immigration status, making it illegal to ask individual students about their immigration status.

Oklahoma’s proposed rule change would require school districts to report the number of students who are unable to prove their citizenship. This likely doesn’t run afoul of any state or federal laws — the text of the rule says that the data would be anonymous and not used to keep children from going to school — and could discourage parents from sending their children to school.

There are about 6,000 undocumented students enrolled in Oklahoma’s public schools, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

“What purpose does such a requirement serve aside from creating yet another tool to ‘other’ children from different cultures, and to create a chilling effect on enrollment by minority children and their families?” Karen Svoboda, the executive director of Defense of Democracy, a nonprofit that advocates for equality in public schools, told The Oklahoman.