Debates about immigration, crime, and deportation in Texas have been markedly hostile for some time and growing more so each day. Unfortunately, the information most Texans receive about this issue is short-sighted, repetitive, and misguided. The premise on which the current deportation binge is based, “Latino immigrants are crime-prone”, is not only false, the opposite is true.
By Mike Tapia, PhD, LTPC Fellow
Texas hosts the largest immigration detention footprint in the U.S, with detainee counts and facilities disproportionate to its estimated undocumented population share. The detention capacity reflects political and institutional choices—border proximity, state–local cooperation with ICE, and a private-prison industry—more than it mirrors objective immigrant reality. Lawfully present immigrants and U.S. citizens have been detained – revealing that racial profiling and weak verification systems have led to wrongful detentions, disproportionately affecting Latinos and other communities of color.
By Juan Flores
Texas’ ultra-right and regressive political and policy environment is worsening the social, cultural, and economic mobility for many Latino families – it echoes and has similarities to the Jim Crow era. Despite progress, disparities and inequities remain, with structural similarities emerging to systems that marginalized African Americans, Latinos, and low-income Whites. All emerging under an undemocratic and exploitive Texas vision. It must be resisted with equitable human capital investment in all Texas families.
Amnesty, with a human rights and cost-effective foundation, can end decades of immigrant injustice and lead to realistic immigration policy. The open borders and immigrant invasion rhetoric is a myth permeated with hate. Open immigration borders have not existed since 1920. National and Texas’s racist immigration history against Mexican Americans and Mexicans is undeniable.
