Texas Needs Its Undocumented Workers

It has been a mantra of the teabaggers and the Republican Party that the borders should be tightly closed and all undocumented workers should be deported. They ignore the fact that it would literally be impossible to deport all the undocumented workers. In Texas alone, there are over 1,650,000 undocumented aliens, or about 6.8% of the state's population. The undocumented workers alone number about 1,022,000, or about 7.2% of the state's total workforce. Imagine the logistical nightmare of trying to deport from 1,000,000 to 1,650,000 people!

But that is not the whole story. These undocumented immigrants spend a lot of money in Texas, and they pay a lot of all kinds of taxes (from property taxes to sales taxes to income taxes, which they don't get refunded to them because of their status). The Center for American Progress estimates that undocumented immigrants account for $77.7 billion of Texas' Gross State Product (GSP), and pay approximately $14.5 billion in taxes. Deporting these immigrants would blast a big hole in the state economy and substantially reduce government revenues (which is not something Texas can afford since it is again facing a budget shortfall).

Texas has long had a symbiotic relationship with our neighbor to the south (much like northern states have with Canada). Tightly shutting the border and deporting large numbers of undocumented workers not only damages the good will between Texas and Mexico, but it seriously damages the economies of both. The teabaggers are just wrong when they say it would help Texas and the United States. They are speaking from their own racist feelings, and not from economic reality.