To prosper, Texas must aid Mexican Immigrants, study says

Study shows increasingly intertwined Texas, Mexican economies.
Texas must invest in education, job training and health services for its growing Hispanic and immigrant work force or, in coming decades, the state will become older, poorer and less educated, a report on the economic relationship between Mexico and Texas concludes. By 2040, the state will be more diverse, according to the report, "The Economic Integration of Mexico and Texas." "Education is the key to take advantage of these trends," said Justino De La Cruz, the study's author and an international economist at Trinity University in San Antonio. De La Cruz's study bolsters previous research on the shifting demographics of Texas showing that Hispanics will replace non-Hispanic whites as a majority. But it also offers a rare look at the economic dependencies of the state and Mexico. Movement of goods, services and labor produces gains on both sides of the border, De La Cruz found. Texas is the top exporting state in the nation, and Mexico is its largest trading partner; more than $40 billion of Texas' annual $100 billion in exports is to Mexico. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. exports to Mexico increased 175 percent from 1994 to 2000. In Texas, 650,000 jobs were tied to exports in 2001. Mexican workers in the United States sent nearly $17 billion to their families last year.  [more]