Doing Research? : Immigration in Your Backyard Immigration Impact: Texas      State Population (2006 CB estimate) 23,507,783 State Population in 2000 20,951,848 Average Annual Change 2000-2006 2.0% Foreign Born Population 2006 1/ 3,569,825 Foreign Born Share 2006 15.2% Foreign Born Population 2000 2,899,642 Foreign Born Share 2000 13.9% Average Annual Change 2000-2006 3.7% Population Projection 2010 24.6 million Population Projection 2025 30.9 million Population Projection 2050 (FAIR) 43.2 million All numbers are from the U.S. Census Bureau unless otherwise noted. Additional Census Bureau, INS, and other immigration-related data are available for Texas. Population Change  Texas’s population increased by 23.3 percent between 1990 and 2000, and by 12.2 percent between 2000 and 2006, bringing Texas’s total population to approximately 24 million.  In 2006 Texas was the 5th fastest growing state in the United States, and accounted for the highest increase in population size among any state. 2/ Approximately 26.2 percent of the total population increase between 2000 and 2006 in Texas was directly attributable to immigrants. FAIR estimates the illegal alien population in 2005 at 1,618,000, which ranks 2nd in the U.S. for the FAIR estimate. This number is 55% above the U.S. government estimate of 1,041,000 in 2000, and 269% above the 1990 estimate of 438,000. According to an estimate of the Pew Hispanic Center, in 2005 there were an estimated 1,400,000 to 1,600,000 illegal aliens living in Texas. This estimate ranks 2nd among illegal alien populations in the United States for the PEW estimate.3/ FAIR estimates in 2004 that the taxpayers of Texas spent $3949 million per year on illegal aliens and their children in public schools.4/   FAIR’s projected annual fiscal costs to Texas taxpayers for emergency medical care, education and incarceration resulting if an amnesty is adopted for illegal residents. Current 2010 2020 $4,670,000,000 $8,014,000,000 $14,041,000,000   Population  Profile Immigration-driven population growth is taking its toll on Texas, the second fastest growing state in the U.S. In the last ten years, nearly 3.9 million new residents settled in Texas. Thirty-six percent of these new residents were immigrants. This large-scale population growth is bringing traffic, pollution, overcrowded schools, and lack of affordable housing to the state, decreasing quality of life and straining natural resources. Texas's foreign-born population increased 90 percent during the 1990s.Between 1990 and 2000,Texas gained over 1.3 million immigrants. Foreign-Born Population  Texas’s foreign-born population increased by 23 percent between 2000 and 2006. During that period Texas gained over 670,000 immigrants, bringing the total number of foreign-born residents in the state to over 3.5 million.     Environmental and Quality of Life Profile Water: Williamson County is predicting a 13 billion-gallon deficit by 2050. The Texas Water Development Board estimates that over the next 50 years, almost 900 cities will either have to drastically reduce water consumption or find new sources to sustain themselves during a drought. 5/ Water is already a scarce resource in Texas and the increased demand generated by population growth is exacerbating the problem. By 2010,over ten percent of the water needs in urban areas will not be met during times of water shortages. 6/ El Paso, San Antonio, and Albuquerque could run out of water in ten to 20 years. 7/ Increased demand for municipal and industrial water use often means buying up and drying out irrigated farmlands - leaving farmers and ranchers without water. As the Texas Agricultural and Natural Resources Summit noted, “As our population increases, water use for municipal purposes will dramatically increase and water for agricultural irrigation will be reduced. Unfortunately, our water resources will stay the same or decline.” 8/ Population growth has taken a toll on the Rio Grande, which is no longer strong enough to reach the sea. 9/ So much of the Rio Grande river is being used to accommodate population growth that Larry McKinney of the Texas Parks Wildlife Department commented, “It’s hardly even a river anymore. It’s more a managed irrigation ditch.” 10/ Traffic: As population growth put more traffic on the roads, the average commute for Texas residents increased 14 percent during the 1990s, to 25 minutes in 2000.11/, 12/  40% of Texas's major urban roads are congested, and 29 percent of Texas's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition. Vehicle travel on Texas' highways increased 38% from 1990 to 2003. Driving on roads in need of repair costs Texas motorists $3.8 billion a year in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs --- $294 per motorist. 13/ Congestion in the Austin metropolitan area costs commuters $867 per person per year in excess fuel and lost time, $263 per person in Beaumont, $111 per person in Corpus Christi, $1,080 per person in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metropolitan area, $330 per person in El Paso, $1,027 per person in the Houston metropolitan area, and $640 per person in the San Antonio area. 14/ Travelers in the Houston area experience an annual delay of 63 hours, ranking 5th in the U.S. Travelers in the Dallas-Ft. Worth-Arlington area experience an annual delay of 60 hours, ranking 6th in the nation. The annual delay for travelers is 33 hours in San Antonio, 14 hours in Beaumont, 8 hours in Laredo, 7 hours in Corpus Christi, and 4 hours in Brownsville. 15/ 15 percent of commuters in Texas have a commute that is 45 minutes or more. 16/ Traffic in Austin is expected to be worse than current Los Angeles traffic by 2025. 17/ Texas traffic is growing so quickly that even if public transit use were to double, the gain would be canceled out by population growth in as little as three months, according to the Texas Public Policy Foundation.18/ Between 1994 and 2000, San Antonio had the highest increase in traffic congestion in the country, while Austin came in fourth. 19/ Houston is ranked as having the fifth worst traffic congestion in the country in 2000. 20/ Disappearing Open Space: Throughout the state, ranchland and farmland is being developed at a rate of 164 acres a day. 21/ Only ten to 15 percent of the Cross Timbers forest remains. 22/ More than 60 percent of bottomland hardwoods and 50 percent of the state’s original 1.2 million acres of coastal wetlands have been destroyed.” 23/ Texas lost 2,151,000 acres of forest land between 1989 and 1999. 24/ Crowded Housing: In 2005 over 401,000 households were defined as crowded or severely crowded housing. 25/ In Dallas, almost five percent of all households are severely crowded. 26/ Studies show that a rise in crowded housing often correlates with an increase in the number of foreign-born. 27/, 28/ Sprawl: Texas has lost more prime agricultural acres to development than any other state. 29/ Texas lost a total of 1.2 million agricultural acres to development between 1992 and 1997, almost double the rate of loss during the previous ten years. 30/ The vast expanses between Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston are filling in so quickly with suburbs and sprawl that they may soon become a single metropolitan area. 31/ As more land is paved over for streets and parking lots, water is prevented from sinking into the soil and replenishing groundwater; Houston is estimated to have lost between 12.8 billion and 29.8 billion gallons of water from 1982 to 1997 as a result. 32/ Houston’s urban forest declined dramatically from 1972 to 1999, depriving the area of $55 million annually in benefits such as reduced air pollution and enhanced flood control. Land with heavy tree canopy (having tree cover of 50 percent or more) declined to 26 percent of the region, from 31 percent. 33/ A study of urban sprawl between 1970 and 1990 that calculated the impact of population increase and per capita land use found that 187.4 square miles of additional land were consumed by urban sprawl in the Austin metropolitan area, and 65.1 percent of that sprawl was attributable to population increase. In the Corpus Christi metro area sprawl consumed an additional 25.2 square miles and population increase accounted for 100 percent of the increase. Urban sprawl increased by 372.4 squares miles in Dallas-Ft. Worth, and 100 percent of the sprawl was attributable to population growth. In El Paso, 101 square miles of growth was 63 percent attributable to population growth, 215.1 square miles of growth was 56.2 percent attributable to population growth in San Antonio, 638.7 square miles of growth was 70.1 percent attributably to population growth in Houston, and 91.6 square miles of population growth in McAllen-Edinburgh-Mission are area was 79.4 percent attributable to population growth. 34/ Border Issues: Texas’s more than 1,800 colonias — unincorporated subdivisions along the Texas-Mexico border, often without basic water and sewer systems, electricity, paved roads, and safe housing — are home to 400,000 people. 35/ The poverty rate of the 14 counties along the border was 34 percent — double the statewide poverty rate of 17 percent. 36/ Brownsville’s Cameron Park, home to a large population of illegal aliens, is the poorest community in the U.S. 37/ Air Quality: 16 or Texas’s 254 counties received a grade of “F” from the American Lung Association in their “State of the Air 2005” report. Three other counties received a “D”, and 5 other counties received a grade of “C”. 38/ Solid Waste: Texas generates 1.31 tons of solid waste per capita. 39/ Poverty: In 2005 25.5 percent of immigrant lived below the federal poverty rate, a 30.9 percent increase since 2000. Among non-citizens, the poverty rate climbs to 30.3 percent. 40/ Immigration and School Overcrowding: Between 2000 and 2006 Texas’s K-12 enrollment increased by over 533,000 students, 41/, 42/ and is projected to increase by an additional 784,000 students by the year 2015. 43/ Texas’s student-teacher ration of 15 ranks 29th in the U.S. 44/ The resulting teacher shortage is becoming so acute that one-quarter of all new Texas teachers are not fully certified in the field they were hired to teach. 45/ In Austin, portable classrooms account for about 30 percent of the district’s elementary classrooms. 46/ Many school districts, including Dallas and Houston, the state’s largest, exceed the state’s student-teacher ratio law. 47/ Texas will need to build two new schools a week to keep up with enrollment increases. 48/ Illegal Residents El Paso County spent $13 million to jail 14,800 illegal aliens in 2000 but only received $1.1 million in compensation from the federal government. 49/ Border communities spend about $108 million a year on undocumented immigrants, according to a study by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition. Most of that went toward jailing immigrants, but Texas border counties paid more than $2.5 million for the costs of providing emergency care, autopsies, and burials. 50/ Endnotes: FAIR estimate based on the 2006 Current Population Survey. Table A. Leading States/Equivalents by population Changes: July 1, 2005, to July 1, 2006. U.S. Census Bureau. "Estimates of the Unauthorized Migrant Population for  States based on the March 2005 CPS", Pew Hispanic Center. Martin, Jack. “Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools into the Red,” A Report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “Table DP-1-4,Profile of General Demographic Characteristics:1990,” 1990 Census, U.S. Census Bureau. Maeve Reston, “Shortages Looming in Some Districts,” Austin American-Statesman, August 17,2000. Monica Wolfson ,“Water Problems in Texas,” Scripps Howard News Service, February 25,2002. Patrick Barta, “Surf and Turf: Battle Brews Over Water Realignment,” Wall Street Journal ,October 8,1997. Timothy Egan, “Near Vast Bodies of Water, Land Lies Parched “ New York Times, August 12, 2001. “Water in Texas,” Texas Agricultural and Natural Resources Summit Initiative, November 1996. “Table DP-1-4,Profile of General Demographic Characteristics:2000,” Census 2000, U.S. Census Bureau. “Table DP-1-4,Profile of General Demographic Characteristics:1990,” 1990 Census, U.S. Census Bureau. Report Card for America's Infrastructure 2005," American Society of Civil Engineers. Ibid "The 2005 Urban Mobility Report", Texas Transportation Institute. “U.S. Population 2007 Data Sheet,” Population Reference Bureau. Thomas A. Rubin and Wendell Cox, “The Road Ahead: Innovations for Better Transportation in Texas,” Texas Public Policy Foundation, February 27,2001. Ibid. Scott Huddleston, “S.A. Tops in Traffic Congestion,” San Antonio Express-News, June 21,2002. Scott Huddleston, “S.A. Tops in Traffic Congestion,” San Antonio Express-News, June 21,2002. Josh Shaffer and Ellen Schroeder, “As Development Spreads, Open Land is Disappearing in Texas,” Dallas Morning News, March 18,2002. Josh Shaffer and Ellen Schroeder, “As Development Spreads, Open Land is Disappearing in Texas,” Dallas Morning News, March 18,2002. “Environment and Natural Resources: Trends and Implications,” Texas Agricultural and Natural Resources Summit Initiative, November 1996. Selected Housing Characteristics: 2005 Data Set - 2005 American Community Survey, American Fact Finder, U.S. Census Bureau. “Table DP-4,Profile of General Demographic. Haya El Nasser, “U.S. Neighborhoods Grow More Crowded,” USA Today, July 7,2002. Randy Capps, “Hardship among Children of Immigrants: Finding from the 1999 National Survey of America’s Families,” Urban Institute, 2001. “Texas Leads The U.S. In Ag Land Loss,” American Farmland Trust. Ibid Patrick Barta, “A New Way of Looking at Texas: One Big City,” Texas Journal ,November 11,1998. Mike Snyder, “Cities Losing Water to Sprawl,” The Houston Chronicle, August 29,2002. Bill Dawson, “City’s Tree Canopy is Getting Thinner,” The Houston Chronicle, December 13,2000. Beck, Roy and Leon Kolankiewicz, “Weighing Sprawl Factors in Large U.S. Cities,” NumbersUSA, March 2001. Alison Gregor, “Colonia Residents Getting Lon Overdue Services,” San Antonio Express-News, January 27,2002. Lisa Falkenberg, “Comptroller Zeros-in on Ills of Region Along Texas-Mexico Border,” Associated Press ,March 27,2001. Carlton Stowers, “Hope in Hell: Cameron Park, Texas, is the Poorest Town in the U.S.A.,” Dallas Observer, July 11,2002. “State of the Air 2005: Texas”, American Lung Association. Report Card for America's Infrastructure 2005," American Society of Civil Engineers. “Texas State Factsheet,” Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute. "Overview of Public Elementary and Secondary Schools and Districts: School Year 1999-2000," National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. "Public Elementary and Secondary School Student Enrollment, High School Completions, and Staff From the Common Core of Data: School Year 2005-06', National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, June 2007. Projections of Education Statistics to 2015, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. "Public Elementary and Secondary School Student Enrollment, High School Completions, and Staff From the Common Core of Data: School Year 2005-06', National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, June 2007. “For Kids, Everything’s Bigger in Texas,” Center for Public Policy Priorities, May 22,2001. Thomas Hargrove, “Teaching Without a License, a Growing American Trend,” Scripps Howard News Service, August 21,2001. A Back to School Special Report on the Baby Boom Echo,” U.S. Department of Education, August 21,1997. Dallas, Houston Have Most Crowded Classrooms in State,” Associated Press, July 30,2002. “Federal Government Makes $1.1 Million Payment to County for Jail Costs,” Associated Press, November 1,2001. Dane Schiller,“$50 Million Proposed for Border Costs,” San Antonio Express-News, February 8,2001.