Half of immigrants in Texas are there illegally, study says
November 29, 2007 Austin American Statesman released an article written by Bob Dart from the Washington Bureau. The article stated many numbers and percentages in response to the rapid increase of population in Texas due to the large amount of legal and illegal immigrants. Bob Dart found that half of the foreign born citizens in our great state of Texas are here illegally. So, the question arises, how can we stop this problem? And is our border patrol functioning properly? The article does not give a perspective on the immigration, but merely brings up statistics showing Texas harbors the most immigrants in the country with Arizona following shortly behind. If you ask me, it is about time that we begin to bring this issue into the limelight. It hits us close to home here in central Texas where a good majority of the city relates to the immigration. It is possible that we tend to look away because we do offer and depend on the immigration to fill job needs, but on the other hand a large percent are using our welfare that we pay for out of oue hard earned money. I think that now that Washington has acknowledged the spike in numbers over the last decade it is time to step up and change problems affecting the way our border patrol is run and try to reduce the illegal immigration into our state.
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This article written on the blog "Britt's Texas Online," outlines the problems Texas is facing with overwhelming amounts of illegal immigrant populations. The author calls it "a problem" that needs to be stopped and asks if "our border patrol is functioning properly." She also brings up the statistic that Texas harbors the most illegal immigrants following Arizona. The last query the author raises is if "It is possible that we tend to look away because we do offer and depend on the immigration to fill job needs, but on the other hand a large percent are using our welfare that we pay for out of our hard earned money."
I actually have a very differing opinion about immigration in this country. The fact is, Texas is always going to have a very large immigration population from both illegal and legal immigrants because it is on the border of Mexico. This means, there are large amounts of Mexican, Latin American, and South American immigrants and it will always be as such, or at least more so than states not occupying a border. This is the same with Florida, they have a large Cuban population because that is the first state you hit when you travel across the Atlantic Ocean. So, keeping that in mind, instead of worrying about the amount of immigrants, which there will always be, why don't we focus on integrating them into our culture and make them functioning parts of society. They fill jobs because they work for cheap, so legalize them, give them a work visa, and make their employer pay taxes on them just as any other employee. Make the immigrants themselves pay taxes just like everyone else, then they're a functioning member of society. Also, I wonder how illegal immigrants are supposed to file for welfare because it is funded by government agencies, which would force illegal immigrants to prove citizenship if they wanted money and then they'd be on record with the government causing the exact opposite of "illegality." Also, the fact that most illegal immigrants are not on government record means that no one actually knows the true amount of illegal immigrants. These numbers are based on estimations that are believed to be true. There is no actual way of counting a "ghost" person. I do understand the problem that there is an increasing amount of illegal immigrants living in Texas, however, the problem is not if our border patrol is working, it's why we are so close-minded as to not allow these people to interact as part of Texas society. The United States is considered a "melting pot" after all is it not?
I agree with you, the issue of illegal immigration needs to be fixed, but the problem isn’t in the border. Either way with security there will always be ways to get across. With the millions of illegal immigrants that are already here we can at least give a work permit. I don’t know why people keep on saying illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes. With anything you buy you are paying taxes and when they work illegally all the taxes get taken off their pay check, and they don’t get it back at the end of the year like U.S. citizens do. There is no way illegal immigrants get welfare though because welfare is a government based program so obviously they need to check for citizenship. Illegal immigrants also work hard to earn their money and contribute highly to the economy, so why not do something to help them also.
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