Articles about immigration
Leading Off (1/9/11)
City Manager: ‘Time To Deal With Flood Control’: This one is behind the paywall, but in short, City Manager Mary Suhm is preaching to the council about how Dallas is desperately in need of a major flood control overhaul. The central project proposed is a $302 million drainage tunnel. But the pump stations on the Trinity River levees also need to be reconstructed, and there are additional repairs and improvements that have been left undone for years. In all, Suhm estimates the total bill for flood control measures will be around $1 billion, and 40 percent of this year’s bond program may be allocated toward flood control projects.
Deported Dallas Teen Back With Family: The Oak Cliff teen who was mistakenly deported to Colombia was back with her mother and grandmother late Friday night and spent all day Saturday with them at an undisclosed location. Reports indicate that the girl, Jakadrien Turner, 15, was adjusting well to life in Colombia, finding a boyfriend, friends, and allegedly coming home pregnant.
Texas Drought Has Killed Estimated 500 Million Trees: That via The Texas Forest Service which believes that after the driest year on record and the second hottest, 10 percent of the state’s trees have died.
Leading Off (10/31/11)
Can Water Recycling Make Fracking Less Wasteful? Texas in the midst of one of the worst droughts in state history, which is having a lasting effect on Texas trees. But natural gas fracking pushes on, a process which uses up to 2 or 3 million gallons of water per new well. Now companies are trying to figure out how to recycle that water, and they are having some success.
Life Just Got Scarier for Mexican Burros: If you’re traveling out west be sure to shoot a burro. That’s because state officials don’t like all the donkeys that are crossing the border from Mexico illegally, prompting park rangers in Big Bend to shoot and kill 130 of an estimated 300 burros to date. Defenders of the beasts of burden blame the plentiful shrubs and other forage-able foods on the United States side of the boarder which offer incentive for the opportunity-starved Mexican donkeys to take their lives into their hands and make the dangerous trek to America.
Jerry Jones Is Insane: I wasn’t going to post about sports. The last five days have been too traumatic for local sports fans. It’s time to turn our attention to other things for a little while. But then, there is this brief piece by David Moore in which Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says that “There is absolutely no alarm in me” after last night’s rout in Philadelphia. “This is not about re-inventing everything we do,” Jones continues. “This is about being disappointed about not winning this football game.” Okay, Jerry. Whatever you say.
Job Growth in Texas Goes Mostly to Immigrants
According to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies of data from the Census Bureau, population growth in Texas from 2007-2010 came primarily from native-born citizens. But 40 percent of new jobs created went to illegal immigrants. To make matters worse, another 41 percent of new jobs went to legal immigrants. For those keeping score at home, that’s 81 percent.
I don’t know the Center for Immigration Studies. I haven’t studied the report. And I’m not an opponent of immigration. But if this is true, Rick Perry can kiss his presidential hopes goodbye.
By the way, for a measured and thoughtful analysis of how to control illegal immigration and improve native-born, middle-class jobs, read Palo Alto entrepreneur Ron Unz’s provocative article in this month’s American Conservative. Warning: it’s long, it’s serious, and it’s not what you would expect.
The Guanajuato Connection: How It Began
Peter refers to a News story about the strong ties between Mexican immigrants to Dallas and the tiny Mexican state of Guanajuato. In 1994, Hector Cantu explored for D Magazine how it started and why it is so strong.
Leading Off (9/19/11)
What a 1976 Trial Tells Us About John Wiley Price: The latest investigative brouhaha surrounding County Commissioner John Wiley Price isn’t the first time the politician has been backed into a legal corner. But what does an acquittal in 1976 tell us about how Price will handle the latest trouble? In short, don’t expect him to be eager to cooperate with the prosecution.
North Texas Economy Strengthens Guanajuato Ties: Most urban areas in the United States tend to draw migrants from specific regions of Mexico, and in the case of Dallas, it is the mountainous Guanajuato (which is one reason why someone needs to launch a new MLS team, Club León USA, and stick them in the Cotton Bowl, but that’s besides the point). In the current economy, in which the North Texas economy is outpacing other parts of the country, the labor-pool network remains entrenched and stronger than ever (sub req).
Bush Raises More Than $300 Million for Library: George W. Bush still has some serious fundraising swagger.
Dallas Is a Job-Creating Machine
Ryan Avent looks at Perry’s “Texas Miracle” and finds that it is a product of our four major cities. Dallas was second to New York in creating jobs in the last year. Dallas and Houston alone accounted for 10 percent of all new jobs in the U.S. One reason is energy, of course. Another reason is our tight government regulation of home financing (yes, government regulation!). But the third is our availability of housing and our openness to newcomers, wherever they come from:
Yet the big secret to success is Texan cities’ willingness to capitalize on their advantages through an extraordinary openness to growth. Relative friendliness to immigration is one source of strength. Between them, Dallas and Houston welcomed over 600,000 new residents from abroad over the past decade. That welcoming spirit extends to other Americans attracted by low housing costs.
That may explain Dallas, Ryan, but what about New York, which beat even Dallas in job creation? Top cities for job growth after the break.
Dallas County Property Tax Valuations Down …
… and Farmers Branch has the biggest decline – 3.6 percent, mostly on residential valuations. Overall, the county is down about 1.7 percent this year, which is actually good news, since the county based its 2012 budget on a drop of more than 4 percent.
But back to that Farmers Branch decline. A FrontBurnervian messaged to ask how this jibed with former Mayor Tim O’Hare’s premise that the town needed more stringent ordinances to combat illegal immigration, because an influx of undocumented aliens was driving property prices down. Was his theory incorrect, or is the fact that the ordinances are still tied up in court to blame, and O’Hare is just remarkably prescient?
Dewhurst Immigration Solution All Wet, Intern Says
Intern James Bright attended today’s talk by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst at D World Headquarters. And he has a bone or two to pick with the lieutenant governor on illegal immigration:
David Dewhurst stopped by D’s office today to let us know about his perfect plan to solve any and all immigration problems: increase border patrol. Well, since this idea has been put out there pretty much forever, and virtually every opinion writer in the nation has given their two cents on the idea, I figured why not throw my thoughts into the mix.
According to Dewhurst, there are approximately 7,000 miles of border and roughly 19,000 current border patrol agents protecting our land. He says that tripling the number of security personal will effectively solve the issues of illegal immigrants, drug traffickers, and people with passports from “terrorist countries” like Libya and Syria coming into the United States.
Should Texas Launch Its Own Guest-Worker Program?
Makes sense to me. Congress has failed utterly in reforming our antiquated immigration laws. So why shouldn’t Texas protect businesses and immigrant workers with a program of its own?
Texas to Mexico: Give Us Your Juice
We don’t want their immigrants (some of us don’t, anyway), but when the weather turns bad, we will take their electricity.
Austin, Dallas Jump Ahead in Attracting Young
In the middle of the past decade, hot housing markets like Riverside, California and Phoenix attacted young adults (age 24-35). Now the moving vans are headed toward Austin and Dallas. Jump for the chart from the Brookings Institution report.
Texas Good, California Bad
I just summarized this piece by Joel Kotkin (anyone around here familiar with him? Didn’t think so) in four words. YOU’RE WELCOME.
Oh, wait, what’s that? It’s a little more nuanced? Fine, go ahead and read it. It’s your Friday afternoon.
Leading Off (9/27/10)
1. The Dallas Morning News has released a pair of polls. The first one shows that Rick Perry has a strong lead over Democratic challenger Bill White, with 46 percent of likely voters supporting the incumbent. The second indicates that Texans favor an “Arizona-type” crackdown on illegal immigration. That’s a cold glass of water to the face of lefty hipsters who forgot we still live in Texas.
2. It looks like the Dallas County district attorney’s office will exonerate a deaf man who pled guilty to a sexual offence, served a five year sentence, and was required to register as a sex offender in Lamar County, even though police found a fingerprint at the scene that matched a serial rapist who was convicted of similar crimes.
3. Attention bond market players, this week’s largest municipal bond offering: the Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s $729 million of Build American Bonds, which will fund bus and rail expansion. According to Bloomberg, that large offering resulted in DART’s Standard & Poor’s rating being cut on September 17, but the lower rating will likely not result in higher borrowing costs for the transit authority.
Kansas Guy Gets Lots of Scrilla from Farmers Branch
Meet Kris Kobach. He’s running for Kansas Secretary of State. He likes rowing, missionary work, and belongs, ironically, to the Open Door Baptist Church.
He’s also made a whole lot of money helping municipalities craft ordinances regarding illegal immigration, and then defending those laws. Among those who are now defending a Kobach-penned ordinance is Farmers Branch, who paid Kobach $100,000. Hazelton, Penn., has spent at least $2 million, with Kobach getting $55,000 of it, at least.
And now Fremont, Neb., is looking at raising taxes to pay the $750,000 it projects it will need to defend its Kobach. No word on how much of that will go to the guy who penned their ordinance.
(H/T: The Pitch)
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