{"id":252247,"date":"2026-04-16T08:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252247\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T08:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:11:08","slug":"texas-immigration-policies-are-hurting-our-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252247\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas\u2019 immigration policies are hurting our economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two recent changes to Texas immigration policy are harmful for the already thin Texas workforce and our state\u2019s economy. This is happening despite increasing support of Americans \u2014 in several surveys<\/a> \u2014 to grant long-term and trusted undocumented immigrants permission to work and stay in the country. We are already seeing the effects of these decisions.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Texas is moving in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

First, by siding with the federal government, state officials allowed the 2001 Texas Dream Act, passed by then-Gov. Rick Perry and our Republican-led state legislature, to be struck down. Since then, undocumented college\u00a0students have lost access to in-state tuition and eligibility for state financial aid. This decision has already affected\u00a0up to 57,000 students<\/a>, according to advocates\u2019 estimates.<\/p>\n

At ScholarShot, a Dallas-based nonprofit helping first-generation college students earn career-ready degrees, we had to move several of our undocumented scholars from now-unaffordable Texas universities to community college. One young man, a junior at the University of Texas at Dallas, had a 4.0 as a pre-med student and is now at Dallas College earning a radiology credential.<\/p>\n

We put these kids through our K-12 schools. That means, as taxpayers, we are investing $150,000 in each diploma these kids earn. That\u2019s not a small investment and we should expect a return for that. Without in-state tuition and the TEXAS Grant, we are relegating these students to low employability or a poverty-level high school wage when we should be providing them with a pathway to work, to earn a livable wage, pay taxes and contribute to the Texas economy.<\/p>\n

Consider also that these kids are the top performers in our high schools, something we witness at ScholarShot. The young man noted above, who left UTD, scored 1260 on the SAT. ScholarShot’s\u00a0first-generation college graduates, who are working legally under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, have starting salaries of $55,000-$75,000 per year, triple a high school-level wage. That is over a $1 million increase in lifetime earnings for each DACA employee.<\/p>\n

After a 2025 ruling, future renewals of work permits to DACA recipients in Texas are at risk<\/a>, something they can still get in other states. DACA recipients in our state have an estimated spending power of $3.7 billion, according to Every Texan<\/a>. We don\u2019t want to flush that money away.<\/p>\n

A second change in policy occurred on Jan. 26, when the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation announced that it will require proof of lawful presence in the United States<\/a> to issue a new or renewed vocational license. As hard as it is to get a professional plumber, HVAC technician or electrician to your home today, imagine if a significant portion of them had to leave our state?<\/p>\n

You may argue that undocumented immigrants take jobs away from American taxpayers. This argument does not hold water, according to a January report in Forbes<\/a>. The unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers grew from 3.7% to 4.1% during the 2025 Trump immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n

Texas has many good things working in its favor, many of which are a result of Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s pro-business policies. However, these two changes in our immigration policy hurt our state, our people and our economy.<\/p>\n

Dan Hooper is the executive director of ScholarShot, a Texas-based nonprofit helping first-generation students earn postsecondary workforce credentials and degrees. He is also the author of \u201cFleece U \u2013 How American Universities Are Robbing Our Kids and Our Future.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two recent changes to Texas immigration policy are harmful for the already thin Texas workforce and our state\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5366,15815,95415,27,6806,29,28,149,398],"class_list":{"0":"post-252247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-college-students","9":"tag-daca","10":"tag-state-financial-aid","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-economy","13":"tag-texas-headlines","14":"tag-texas-news","15":"tag-undocumented-immigrants","16":"tag-university-of-north-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252247","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=252247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}