Win for Taxpayers: California Migrant Student Enrollment Plunges as Border Shuts, Districts Cut Programs and Lose Funding

New migrant student enrollment in California public schools has plunged over the past two years as border crossings collapsed under the Trump administration, forcing districts to shutter specialized programs and reassign staff, saving taxpayers millions of dollars.

The impact of the lowered enrollment shows how heavily some systems depended on the children of migrants and illegal aliens to pad numbers for state funding.

In Oakland Unified, the district averaged more than 1,300 new migrant students each year from 2017-18 through 2024-25.

That fell to 498 in 2025-26 and just 212 so far this school year as of early October, according to EdSource.

Most of the remaining new enrollments are elementary s...