issued<\/a> by Attorney General Ken Paxton that rescinded a 2001 opinion by then-Attorney General John Cornyn. Paxton\u2019s new directive requires a valid Social Security number for all occupational license applications.<\/p>\n\u201cIllegal aliens who don\u2019t belong in this country should not be rewarded for their criminal actions by receiving occupational licenses that allow them to undercut the wages of American citizens,\u201d Paxton said. \u201cI have rescinded John Cornyn\u2019s legal opinion that put Texans last by rolling out the red carpet for the invasion of our State.\u201d<\/p>\n
J.R. Gonzales, vice chair of the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce, said the change was \u201can assault\u201d on Hispanics.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to tell me that someone who knows air conditioners for more than 15 years is going to stop working on them because you told them not to,\u201d Gonzales said, per the Statesman. \u201cIf you take it away from them they\u2019re going to find a way to do this illegally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Owners of cosmetology and barber schools in immigrant communities reported enrollment drops of more than half in some cases. Luis Zepeda, who runs a Round Rock barber school serving mostly immigrants, said more than half of his 50 students are now ineligible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say, \u2018I\u2019d rather work illegally in a restaurant or construction than go to school and work illegally as a barber. I\u2019m better as I am.\u2019 And they\u2019re right,\u201d Zepeda said, according to the Statesman.<\/p>\n
The rule change is similar to proposals at other state agencies, including Texas Parks and Wildlife and Housing and Community Affairs. Some advocates have urged commissioners to grandfather in workers who already hold licenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of hairdressers, barbers, electricians, and HVAC technicians across Texas could lose the ability to obtain or renew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[81723,6974,3309,81721,81719,81720,81722,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-208313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-hairdresser","tag-human-trafficking","tag-john-cornyn","tag-legal-opinion","tag-president-bill-clinton","tag-professional-licenses","tag-social-security-number","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}