OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KOKH) – Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters is asking Vice President Kamala Harris to reimburse Oklahomans $474.9 million for costs related to illegal immigration.
This comes after Walters announced in August that he would ask school districts to track the costs and impact of illegal immigration on schools.
“What you’ve seen is this perfect storm of illegal immigrants flooding into our state because border czar Kamala Harris hasn’t done her job. And we’ve lost Oklahoma taxpayers’ money. We need to educate those kids in this way,” Walters said.
FOX 25 asked how the nearly $500 million amount was calculated.
“Kamala Harris doesn’t want us to know how many illegal immigrants there are in our state. So what we did was we went into school districts and found students who didn’t speak English, and during the school year we They found students who came from other countries and started removing them.”Our best estimate is 474 million, including illegal immigrants who don’t show residence in the country.” Walters said.
In his letter, Walters said that from 2021 to 2023, approximately 3,000 unaccompanied children were placed with sponsors in Oklahoma, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Mr. Walters explained how the amount per student is determined.
“We look at the cost of educating each child and crunch the numbers,” he says. “Look also at the resources required for English as a second language. Again, this is an additional cost for the student, and we are concerned about what constitutes an increase in resources for individual children. The same is true when considering priorities.” That’s one thing. ”
Walters told FOX that the 25 illegal aliens are not paying taxes and are not helping fund their education.
Although illegal aliens pay many taxes, including sales tax, Walters told FOX 25 this does not affect the school district.
“No, because if you look at taxes as a whole, that’s not how it works here. You’re right. The taxation methods that we use are obviously different, but we have people who are here illegally. If so, they don’t pay all the taxes, and you can’t take into account not only the taxes coming in, but also where they live and where the taxes are coming from. “It’s also about how many kids there are in a grade in this district,” Walters said.
Walters said he did not expect a response from Harris.
