Oklahoma Republican state officials have been outspoken in their support for President-Elect Donald Trump’s plan to address illegal immigration, including mass deportations. 

Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday released a joint statement with 25 other Republican governors announcing support for using state law enforcement and the National Guard to help carry out Trump’s immigration agenda. 

We used public records, information provided by state officials and other sources to fact-check recent claims about illegal immigration in Oklahoma. 

Claim: The legalization of medical marijuana is a driver of illegal immigration to the state.
Source: Tim Tipton, Oklahoma Commissioner of Public Safety, cited “proximity to the southern border, a robust interstate system, and the legalization of medical marijuana as factors contributing to increased illegal immigration,” according to a News9 story published Nov. 20.
Fact check: True but misleading

Thousands of workers without legal immigration status have taken jobs on marijuana farms in Oklahoma since the state legalized medical marijuana in 2018. Many of them face abuse and are trafficked for their labor, The Frontier and ProPublica found in a joint investigation. These workers often meet a minimal threshold to obtain T visas, which grant victims of human trafficking legal status in the United States, said Mark Woodward, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. Many workers who lack legal status have also applied for political asylum and their cases would need to be adjudicated before they are deported under current law. The Frontier and ProPublica found many immigrants who have found jobs on marijuana farms in Oklahoma are from China and have fled religious or political persecution from its authoritarian government.
-Garrett Yalch    

Claim: The state has paid $474.9 million to educate the children of undocumented immigrants. 
Source: State Superintendent Ryan Walters sent a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris in October demanding the federal government reimburse Oklahoma $474.9 million for what he claimed the state has spent to educate the children of undocumented immigrants.
Fact check: Mixed

Walters announced in July that he would work with local schools to track the cost of educating the children of undocumented immigrants. But multiple schools said they would not ask families about immigration status, NBC News reported. It’s unconstitutional for states to deny children access to free public education based on immigration status, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982. 

Dan Isett, a spokesperson for Walters, did not answer specific questions about how the State Department of Education came up with their figure, but pointed back to the letter sent to the federal government. The letter cites the $474 million as a figure from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, a Washington D.C.-based think-tank that promotes reducing immigration.

FAIR said the figure is based off of a population study the organization did in 2021, which used census data and other information to determine that there were nearly 42,000 school-aged children in Oklahoma who don’t have citizenship or whose parents don’t have citizenship. Oklahoma spent about $11,371 per student that year, said FAIR’s media director, which would be roughly $474 million. 

But estimating the number of youth that fit into this category is difficult. The think-tank Migration Policy Institute published estimates saying only 6,000 youth under age 16 are undocumented in Oklahoma. The U.S. Department of Education does not collect data on the immigration status of students or their families. But the agency does collect data on students who meet the definition of immigrant youth — aged 3 through 21, were not born in any state and have not attended a school in any state for more than three full academic years — and participate in immigrant education programs. The number of English learning students in Oklahoma has steadily risen since the 2017-2018 school year. 
-Kayla Branch 

Claim: it costs Oklahoma taxpayers about $36,000 a day to house 526 illegal immigrants in Oklahoma jails.
Source: Stitt made this claim in a press release announcing plans to deport undocumented immigrants being held in Oklahoma jails and prisons.  
Fact check: True

It costs the state nearly $1.5 million a day to house all of the 22,000 prisoners in state custody, according to an Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesperson. The agency confirmed that it houses 526 immigrants who are in the country illegally, costing the state about $36,000 a day. Immigrants lacking permanent legal status make up about 2% of the Department of Correction’s inmate population.
-Maddy Keyes

Claim: Chinese gangs involved in the marijuana industry in Oklahoma are “entering America illegally.” 
Source: The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, made this claim in an article published in the fall 2024 issue of City Journal magazine.
Fact check: Mostly false

​​Most Chinese nationals in Oklahoma who have been prosecuted in connection to illegal marijuana farms have legal immigration status, according to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and dozens of criminal case files The Frontier has reviewed for other stories. Moreover, many farm owners have also been in the United States for an extended period of time: Some owned restaurants and other legitimate businesses, others ran marijuana farms in other states like California, Colorado, and New Mexico, and others have been involved with networks involved in other kinds of crime including money laundering and human smuggling.
-Garrett Yalch

Claim: Undocumented immigrants contributed $227 million to Oklahoma tax revenues in 2022
Source: The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy published a study earlier this year that found  undocumented immigrants in Oklahoma paid $227.5 million in state and local taxes in 2022.
Fact check: True 

The left-leaning think tank also estimated that undocumented immigrants in the state would have contributed $273.1 million that year if they were granted work authorization. 

According to the analysis, undocumented immigrants pay most of the same taxes that people in the U.S. legally do, but can’t access many of the services they support and are ineligible for some tax credits. 

The group’s estimate is similar to one made by the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration organization, which found that undocumented immigrants in Oklahoma contributed $230.8 million in state and local taxes in 2022. 

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analyzed Census data to identify potential undocumented immigrants, a spokesperson for the organization said in an email. They considered reported citizenship statuses, country of birth and date of entry into the U.S, while adjusting for undercounting. 

The organization then calculated undocumented immigrants’ estimated tax contributions, including income, payroll and sales taxes. 
-Ari Fife

Rating system: 
True: A claim that is backed up by factual evidence
Mostly true: A claim that is mostly true but also contains some inaccurate details 
Mixed: A claim that contains a combination of accurate and inaccurate or unproven information 
True but misleading: A claim that is factually true but omits critical details or context 
Mostly false: A claim that is mostly false but also contains some accurate details 
False: A claim that has no basis in fact