Even Libs Asking Why TX Refuses to Pass E-Verify

Many people are noticing.

Another legislative session flew by, and once again, the Texas House didn’t lift a finger to tackle the millions of illegal workers fueling sky-high housing prices and the overall Banana Republic vibes in Texas.

Looks like even the libs at the Texas Tribune are tired of the “developing-world ambiance” in our state, because they just published a long piece exposing Republicans’ hypocrisy on immigration—and their refusal to pass even the simplest laws to fix it.

Texas Tribune:

“E-Verify is the most functional and cost-effective method the state of Texas can implement to stem the flow of illegal immigration, or those that are here not legally, to ensure that U.S. citizens and those able to work in the state of Texas are the ones who get the Texas jobs,” Kolkhorst told fellow senators, reminding them that the Business and Commerce Committee passed her nearly identical bill two years ago. (That proposal never made it to the Senate floor.)

No one spoke against the new legislation. Only one committee member, a Democrat, questioned it, asking if supporters would also favor an immigrant guest worker program. A handful of labor representatives called the bill a bipartisan priority, testifying that too many employers cut corners by hiring workers illegally at lower wages. The bill went on to sail through the committee and the Senate.

But then, like dozens of E-Verify bills over the last decade, the legislation died.

Texas’ top Republican leaders have built a political brand on the state’s hard-line stance against illegal immigration, pouring billions of dollars into Gov. Greg Abbott’s state border security initiative, including funding construction of a border wall and deploying state police to arrest migrants on a newly created offense for trespassing.

They tried everything—except, of course, the obvious things that actually work.

An estimated 1.3 million Texas workers, more than 8% of the state’s work force, are here illegally, according to a 2023 analysis of U.S. census data by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

About a quarter of all construction workers in Texas lack legal status, for example, and the industry faces a critical labor shortage as a need for housing booms.

I’m not a data scientist, but it seems like deporting 1.3 million illegal aliens would free up housing for somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.3 million Texans.

Do we really need criminals who mock our laws building our houses? Surely we can do better than choosing the worst possible option.

There isn’t any occupation where “random foreign person who constantly breaks the law” isn’t the worst option for our country.

Likewise, the state’s understaffed agricultural, restaurant and elder care sectors rely on workers here illegally.

Yeah, how on earth could we possibly manage to cook food without relying on people who cheated their way into our country?

“If you got serious about applying [E-Verify], you would create even worse problems” with labor shortages, said Bill Hammond, a GOP former state lawmaker who once led the Texas Association of Business. “Do you want to go to a restaurant and use paper plates because no one will wash dishes?”

Hey Bill, not sure if you’ve been hitting the THC gummies too hard or what, but there are other solutions to these problems besides leaving the border wide open and claiming we are hopeless.

The excuses are really pathetic at this point.

Hopefully Abbott calls a special session and demands the House pass E-Verify. The only reason they wouldn’t is blatant corruption, which is almost certainly what’s going on.