O’hare mentions that immigration was supposedly always an issue for FB residents. Well, in 2006 a citizen task force was setup with 60 FB residents to have them voice key issues with the city. Illegal immigration, mexicans, etc. were never mentioned. In fact, it was only until an online group called Farmers Branch Citizens Group (O’hare is a key member) emerged that this became an issue. This is per Liz Biss (a member of the task force) and was published in this month’s D Magazine.

O’hara also blames illegal immigrants for his failings in the real estate market. Aside from his own mediocre command of financial matters, the strain on home values can best be attributed to the lagging housing market. A big reason for the lagging housing market is the subprime loan market, which, ironically is a major sponsor of conservative talk radio (the people that organized the “speak English” t-shirt campaign.) You can also attribute it to other things such as a weak dollar (to other currencies such as the Euro… which has grown significantly thanks to open markets and a highly educated and motivated population that on-average speaks more than one language and thus is able to better compete on a global scale.)

O’hara also claimed that legal fees will supposedly never go beyond the $100k deductible per the legal insurance FB has invested in. So, essentially you are spending $100k (not factoring the other fees that the insurance will not cover, namely time and beaurocratic muscle necessary to enforce and maintain this) to collect fines of $500. These will be really hard to prove because all an illegal has to do is doctor up some document that purports a legal status here. If a landlord is required to ask for proof of citizenship, and they are shown a false greencard… how can the landlord be expected to know enough about immigration documents to know which is fake and which is real? It sounds like a stupid move, economically speaking.

De la Garza is passionate but he was definitely the wrong person to represent the argument.

I agree with you and say I am against this law because it will inevitably bring more hate. I can already sense it. Mexicans, for the most part, were not really targeted as much by hate speech. Lately, however, I see tons of anti-Mexican rhetoric. More and more I feel like I need to justify my own existence here. Why should I? My family has lived in Dallas for several generations, and parts of my family have been in Texas as far back as I can trace. If anybody should really feel like they belong here then my family should, but I am perceiving increased hostility and get the feeling that more people see me and think I don’t belong.

Part of the money that funded this came from a t-shirt fundraiser. The t-shirts said something like “Welcome to America, now please speak English.” The part of my family that is solidly Tejano has always spoken Spanish. In fact, my generation was the first to learn English first. That may be surprising to some people but Texas was once actually part of Mexico, and Spanish was a dominant language (and still mostly is.) Why do you think Tejano music is primarily sung in Spanish? To me, the shirts and the overall attitudes of the people peddling them are extremely hostile. My family is bilingual and very proud of their culture. In fact, most of the younger generation have maintained our love and knowledge of Spanish despite the fact that we had to make an extra effort to study it. The mayor of Farmer’s Branch actually wanted to ban all foreign language literature from the local library. What does this say about the people there? To me, it shows a high level of ignorance and intellectual mediocrity.

I’m typically for respecting laws but I believe laws should be respected only when the laws are respectable. Look at the economic history of Mexico, in particular the effects of NAFTA on Mexican people. Market dumping in sectors such as maize, wheat, and legumes by US corporations helped force millions of Mexican farmers off of their land. You can compare the graphs of crashing corn prices and farm foreclosures and see a strong relationship between DHS estimates of illegals entering the country. It’s legal for us to totally fuck over the Mexican economy, take their land and natural resources, leave them with nothing… and yet expect them to remain idle? Fuck that. If our government and corproations are going to take whatever they want without any regard to the common Mexican, I think letting them come here and take what they want is the very least we can offer. Millions are here. More will come. There will be tons of us here… who knows, we may become the majority some day? As hard as we tend to work, it’ll only be a matter of time until we take over.

What are people afraid of? In a few generations, all of those immigrants will be just like us and the rest of the people who have been here for a while… moderately successful, influential, and part of the machine we all love and hate.