http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5722973.html
April 22, 2008, 11:21PM
Immigration, taxes, crime darken Houston Area Survey

By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle


Harris County residents increasingly carry negative views about immigrants, saying they burden tax-supported services including schools and hospitals while contributing to crime, according to the 2008 Houston Area Survey.

The survey, conducted annually since 1982 by Rice University sociology professor Stephen Klineberg, questioned local residents recently about the economy, housing, immigration and other topics.

The survey found 63 percent agreed that new immigration should be limited, up from 48 percent in 2004. Meanwhile, 61 percent of those polled said illegal immigrants are a ''very serious" problem, up from 43 percent in 2006.

This year, 56 percent favored granting citizenship to illegal immigrants who have learned English and didn't have a criminal record, down from 68 percent in 2007. And today, 43 percent believe immigrants contribute more than they take, down from 52 percent in 2002.

The pessimistic attitudes toward immigrants are striking in an area as diverse as Houston. Nearly 25 percent of Harris County's population of 3.8 million is foreign-born, according to 2006 Census Bureau data.

The local attitudes reflect a nationwide fear of a rapidly growing population of immigrants who don't embrace American culture, reduce the prominence of English and increase poverty that will strap taxpayers, the survey noted.

The backlash against the mostly Latino immigrants is comparable to past resentment over large-scale immigration from Europe, Klineberg said, adding the bias is stoked by conservative media outlets who only focus on the negative aspects of the influx.

Feeling surfaced in 2005

''Whenever there have been large waves of immigrants arriving in the country — the Irish in 1840s and 1850s or the Greeks, Italians and Poles at the turn of the century — Americans have always responded with antagonism and fear," he said.

This increasingly negative feeling about immigrants, both legal and illegal, first surfaced in the Houston Area Survey in 2005, he said.

''Each year there has been deepening anti-immigration attitudes, and this is happening despite the evidence of successful assimilation and upward mobility" of new arrivals, said Klineberg. ''All the evidence suggests Latino immigrants moving up and out of poverty, learning English and becoming Americans at least as rapidly, if not more rapidly, than Greeks and Italians did 100 years ago."

But the positive indicators are little comfort to some.

Robert Bracht, a 71-year-old retired Houston accountant, said limited immigration has always been good for the nation, ''but it's gotten out of hand."

Bracht said attitudes about illegal immigrants have soured because of the perception they're responsible for increasing crime, a sentiment expressed by 23 percent of those surveyed.

However, 48 percent of those surveyed said their primary concern was the strain illegal immigrants placed on public services. Thirteen percent said the newcomers were taking jobs away from Americans.

''The crime is probably the biggest thing, and maybe the fact that here in Houston every car that passes you has Hispanics in it," Bracht said. ''Maybe they feel we are being overrun."

Other academics, including Raul A. Ramos, an assistant history professor at the University of Houston, agreed anti-immigrant sentiment is triggered by external events as well as cultural anxiety.

Ramos said Mexicans in particular are targets because current resentment taps into anti-Mexican sentiment dating to before the Mexican-American War of 1848.

The shifting attitudes are due to ''a continued security concern combined with a major economic downturn, so the conditions are right for anti-immigrant sentiment to take root," Ramos said.

Houstonians should not ignore contributions made by immigrants, one Spring resident said.

''More than anything, people should remember ... they do very good work for little money," said Griselda Rivera, 34, a baby sitter who became a U.S. citizen this year.

Klineberg said the shift in attitudes has implications for Houston's continued prosperity, since the city's population has become one of the most diverse in the nation.

''As the older Anglos move into retirement, the young people who will be the citizens, the workers, the taxpayers and voters will be increasingly non-Anglo and increasingly Hispanic," Klineberg said. ''So these attitude changes are consequential for Houston."

james.pinkerton@chron.com