A state study of the economic contributions of undocumented immigrants in 2006 concluded that they contribute to the state’s economy. But Governor Greg Abbott is a leading voice for deporting them en masse. The study has never been updated, for obvious reasons. Demonizing these people, rather than recognizing their contributions, is political gold.

When they are gone, who will plant, tend, and pick the crops? Who will be the landscapers and gardeners? Who will work in the restaurant kitchens? Who will fill the need for construction workers? Who will staff the hotels? Governor Abbott doesn’t care. If he were wise, he would demand the ouster of those who have criminal records and seek a path to citizenship for the vast majority who are hard-working, good people. They build Texas.

Alessandro Serrano of The Texas Tribune wrote:

In 2006, Texas State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn set out to assess the impact undocumented Texans have on the state economy and found that they contributed more to Texas than they cost the state.

“This is the first time any state has done a comprehensive financial analysis of the impact of undocumented immigrants on a state’s budget and economy,” Strayhorn, a Republican, wrote at the beginning of the report.

It was also the last time Texas did such a study.

The state has not updated Strayhorn’s analysis or conducted a similar review since it was issued 18 years ago. But a series of reports released by nonprofits and universities have confirmed what Strayhorn’s office found.

Those findings contradict notions that undocumented immigrants strain state resources — a common argument made by some state Republican leaders in interviews and lawsuits challenging the federal government’s immigration policies.

“Texans are hardworking and generous people, but the cost of illegal immigration is an unconscionable burden on the taxpayers of our great state,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in January 2021. “Texas will always welcome those who legally immigrate, but we cannot continue forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for individuals who skirt the law and skip the line.”

The studies also offer hints of the cost that Texans could pay if the incoming Trump administration follows through on its promise to conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants across the country.

Strayhorn’s analysis estimated that the absence of 1.4 million undocumented immigrants living in Texas in 2005 would have cost the state about $17.7 billion in gross domestic product, which is a measure of the value of goods and services produced in Texas.

“Blanket mass deportations would be devastating not only for Texas’ economy, but for Texas families,” said Juan Carlos Cerda, Texas state director for the American Business Immigration Coalition, a pro-immigrant group of business leaders. “We’re talking about industries like construction, agriculture, health care, manufacturing that are growing but depend heavily on immigrant labor — and many of these workers have been in the state for decades.”

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to office, Texas state leaders have been eager to help him carry out his pledged immigration crackdown. A major pillar of Trump’s first campaign that lifted him to office in 2016 was a promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. This time he vowed mass deportations.

Since his victory, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham has offered the incoming administration1,400 acres in the Rio Grande Valley that could be used as a staging area for deportations.

Texas is home to about 11% of immigrants in the United States and an estimated 1.6 million undocumented persons — the second-most in the country after California.

When Strayhorn’s office studied their impact on the state’s economy, it found that undocumented Texans at the time produced about $1.6 billion in state revenues collected from taxes and other sources — exceeding the roughly $1.2 billion in state services, like public education and hospital care, they received.

The study also found that local governments “bore the burden” of $1.4 billion in health care and law enforcement costs that were not compensated by the state.

Since then, there have been a handful of studies that reached similar conclusions.

“Beneath all of the sound and fury, however, is one incontrovertible fact: TEXAS NEEDS THE WORKERS!!” stated a 2016 paper published by the Perryman Group, a Waco-based economic and financial analysis firm. The group’s review estimated that undocumented Texans contributed $11.8 billion to the state — after subtracting the $3.1 billion Texas spent on them for health care, education and other public services.

The paper added: “While there are many considerations, the fact is that undocumented workers in Texas generate millions of jobs and billions in tax revenue. Restrictive immigration policy will cause substantial economic and fiscal losses, and optimal policy would be crafted to minimize these dislocations.”