Thread: TX-Lawmakers to tackle immigration issues

Lawmakers to tackle immigration issues

El Paso Times (Texas)
December 7, 2009
By Zahira Torres / Austin Bureau

AUSTIN -- State lawmakers during this next year will revisit the costs of providing services to undocumented immigrants.

They will gauge the effectiveness of state efforts to control drugs and violence along the border.

Then, they will consider ways to spur economic development along the border, an area they say has received a bum rap as concerns escalate over violence in Mexico.

The same three issues seem to emerge every time lawmakers take a look at the needs and challenges of border communities.

Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group in Texas, yet residents along the border often feel their needs are neglected by state officials.

Lawmakers are not in session next year, but three committees in the state House of Representatives have been tasked with reviewing several border issues during the interim period.

The committees had some input on which topics should be a focus but, ultimately, received their assignments from House speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio.

Committees could start meeting now but lawmakers, many of who are up for re-election, said they may wait until after the March primary.

Immigration

The issue that could prove most inflammatory is one that requires the Committee on State Affairs to evaluate the costs of services and benefits provided to undocumented immigrants by state agencies and local governments.

Immigration is a hot-button issue in Texas.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle typically face a barrage of verbal attacks and criticism from interest groups. Some say they have even received threats of physical violence.

Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, is on the committee that will assess the costs of undocumented immigration.

Gallego said the upcoming election year might have played a role in the selection of the topic.

He said Republicans could be trying to appeal to their core voters.

The representative warned that the committee would have to look at the issue from a data standpoint and avoid becoming emotional.

"If we are going to do this the right way, it is an important thing," he said. "If this is about politics, that will play out and I will be pretty disappointed."

The state comptroller's office released a report three years ago that studied the impact of undocumented immigrants in Texas.

The report said an estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in 2005 produced $1.58 billion in state revenues. Their contributions, the report said, exceeded the $1.16 billion in state services they received.

State Rep. Veronica Gonzales, D-McAllen, said immigration reform should remain a federal issue. She hopes studying the issue does not create a situation where services such as healthcare will be denied to immigrant children.

"We need to have fair laws in place so that people don't live in the shadows and they can work and be productive if they are going to be here in the United States," she said.

Border security

Gonzales chairs the committee on Border and Intergovernmental Affairs.

That committee, along with the committee on Public Safety, will study the effectiveness of state initiatives that target drug-related crimes and violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Gonzales said after March she plans to have committee meetings in El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley to listen to testimony and gather feedback.

El Paso leaders have said they welcome plans to make the border more secure, but they do not want those measures to hinder trade with Ju?rez.

Local leaders estimate that more than 50,000 jobs in El Paso are tied to Mexico.

El Paso also gets between $1.4 billion and $1.6 billion from retail trade with Mexican citizens.

Gonzales said she understands that increasing security cannot hinder the relationships border communities have with Mexico.

She said the committee would look at the best ways to use about $87 million approved this year for border security efforts.

Part of that will mean considering the effectiveness of Gov. Rick Perry's border Web camera program, she said.

Earlier this year the El Paso Times reported that the $2 million program led to just 11 arrests from 17 cameras on the 1,200-mile Texas-Mexico border.

Perry has said that the program also serves to deter crime, which is not easily measurable. Gonzales, though, said it still merits further analysis.

"We have beat it like a dead horse," she said. "It's been talked about quite a bit, but we do want to look at the numbers of those persons who were perhaps running drugs, or guns or other things who were caught by virtue of these cameras or consider if it is better to have trained personnel there on the border."

Economic impact

El Paso and other border communities face yet another challenge that lawmakers must address in the interim.

Violence in Mexico has created misconceptions about border cities in Texas, Gonzales said.

Last month El Paso was named the second-safest large city in the nation by independent publisher CQ Press.

But Gonzales said that is overshadowed by the violence in Ju?rez.

A drug war has claimed more than 3,000 lives in Ju?rez since it began in January 2008.

Gonzales said reports of the violence in Mexico give corporations an unfair impression about the state's border communities.

"They are reading this stuff thinking, 'We don't want to locate there and we definitely do not want to put our executives in harm's way,'" Gonzales said.

So, she said lawmakers will have to find a way to draw companies to the border through financial incentives.

State Rep Joe Moody, D-El Paso, also sits on the committee.

He said he would try to get lawmakers to commit resources to make El Paso and other border communities leaders in renewable energy and alternative energy.

"This region sits in an area that is ripe to develop that technology," he said. "It's the next frontier. It is the next boon for this community."

Zahira Torres may be reached at ztorres@elpasotimes.com; 512-479-6606.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/En ... 55&start=3

Oh make me puke!

Joe Straus needs to go to the back of the room. Boooooooooo!!!!!

The representative warned that the committee would have to look at the issue from a data standpoint and avoid becoming emotional

Something the Democrats can't do and that damn report from Comptroller Strayhorn is a joke, it omitted many of the high dollar expenses like educating the children, school lunches, medical... Anything the fed. pays she left out of it.

Local leaders estimate that more than 50,000 jobs in El Paso are tied to Mexico.

What does this mean? It's said that 50% of El Paso residents are illegal aliens! The jobs are servicing the illegals! If the jobs go with them, no big loss.

Dixie

There are all sorts of ways to mislead with statistics. As a rule of thumb I figure the Dems are using whatever means they can to find more loyal voters.

We don't have anyone with a backbone to stand up and be counted.

The Texas legislature is a joke.
This crap needed to be nipped in the bud, decades ago.

It makes me sick to see the pandering to Mexicans, and thumbed noses at Americans.

Originally Posted by Dixie

Oh make me puke!

Joe Straus needs to go to the back of the room. Boooooooooo!!!!!

The representative warned that the committee would have to look at the issue from a data standpoint and avoid becoming emotional

Something the Democrats can't do and that damn report from Comptroller Strayhorn is a joke, it omitted many of the high dollar expenses like educating the children, school lunches, medical... Anything the fed. pays she left out of it.

[quote:1unjn2ho]Local leaders estimate that more than 50,000 jobs in El Paso are tied to Mexico.

What does this mean? It's said that 50% of El Paso residents are illegal aliens! The jobs are servicing the illegals! If the jobs go with them, no big loss.

Dixie[/quote:1unjn2ho]

What the report also showed was that illegal aliens had stolen $1.4 billion in wages and earnings from US citizens in El Paso, just like a study here in North Carolina showed unwittingly that illegal aliens had robbed North Carolina citizens of over $2 billion a year in lost wages. I bet too if you examine the study in Texas you'll find what we found here in the UNC study which was that it was requested by the Mexican Consulate to "prove" the contribution of Hispanic immigrants to the state economy. But what it proved in reality was that 76% of of the Hispanic immigrant population in North Carolina were illegal aliens, 90% of those were from Mexico and they cost North Carolina Workers $2 billion in lost jobs and wages ... every single year.

Ooops!