Poll finds most Texans want troops on border
By THADDEUS HERRICK

SAN ANTONIO A majority of Texans consider illegal immigration a serious
problem and favor using the nation's armed forces to stop it.

The findings, published in the latest Texas Poll, suggest a hardening of
attitudes toward illegal immigration in a state that has long been seen as
generally tolerant on the matter, especially compared to California.

Eighty two percent of Texans see illegal immigration as a serious problem,
the same percentage as about a decade ago when the issue was also at the
forefront of the national agenda.

But the frustration with illegal immigration might best be illustrated by
the more than one in two Texans who say they would deploy troops to help
seal the border with Mexico.

"Whatever it takes to keep illegal aliens out," said Robert Higley, an
Austin resident and member of an antiillegal immigration group known as
Texans for Fair Immigration."

The Scripps Howard Texas Poll, which sampled 1,000 adult Texans, was
conducted Oct. 27Nov. 7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus three
percentage points.

It shows the illegal immigration issue taking hold in Texas, with 61 percent
of the respondents saying the federal government is not doing enough to stop
the problem. Less than a quarter of Texans see any benefit in illegal
immigration.

Still, attitudes differ along demographic lines.

Among Anglos, 86 percent say illegal immigration is a serious problem, while
69 percent of Hispanics characterize the issue in such terms. Similarly,
North Texans and East Texans see the unlawful influx as more problematic
than West Texans.

And while 55 percent of Anglos favor dispatching troops to the border, only
36 percent of Hispanics favor such a move.

"Most Hispanics want to reduce illegal immigration," said Rodolfo de la
Garza, an expert on U.SMexico relations at the University of Texas. "But
not at the risk of harassment."

Suzan Kern, a spokeswoman for the El Paso based Border Rights coalition,
thinks the poll results would differ if those surveyed were given some
background on illegal immigration before being asked whether they would
enlist the military to stop it.

"This is a knee jerk reaction," she said. "If you presented both sides, if
you told people what it really means to have the military on the border,
you'd have a different set of results."

Still, experts say Texans are taking a harder line on illegal immigration
because leaders, chief among them San Antonio's Lamar Smith, a Republican
congressman, have pressed the issue in their push to pass tougher laws.

The Immigration Reform Act of 1996 calls for the number of Border Patrol
agents to more than double, along with other provisions, several of which
Congress is moving this year to ease.

"Politicians have made illegal immigration an issue," said Jorge Gonzalez,
an immigration expert at San Antonio's Trinity University. "Now it's finally
having some resonance."

This is somewhat new for Texas, which in the early 1980s under formerGov.
Bill Clements honored the contribution of illegal immigrants. The state's
shared history with Mexico has long been seen as the reason for its
forgiving attitude, which in recent years has provided a stark contrast to
California's antiillegal immigrant posture.

Though more than half of those surveyed say undocumented workers take jobs
nobody wants, conversations with Texans such as Higley indicate much of the
antiillegal immigration feeling stems from economic insecurity.

"They're inclined to work for less," Higley said, "and employers are
inclined to hire them."

A major report released by the National Academy of Sciences last May found
that illegal immigrants do take jobs from American workers and depress
wages. But the study also said that immigration both legal and illegal
produces substantial economic benefits.

Consequences aside, there is evidence that illegal immigration has increased
in Texas today over the past several years. Part of this is thought to stem
from the success of a border crackdown in California, which is seen as
having shifted the problem east.

In fact, a comparison of five months of illegal immigrant apprehensions
during 1995 and 1997 shows sizable increases in both El Paso and McAllen and
a decrease in California.

Some feel the state simply cannot handle the financial pressure illegal
immigrants are bringing to cities and schools.

Meanwhile, others who live along the border complain that illegal immigrants
are trespassing like never before, trampling fences, stealing and
vandalizing.

"People are starting to holler," said Sandi Wipff, the wife of Maverick
County rancher Sonny Wipff, whose family has raised cattle on the border
since the 1882. "They're getting tired of it."

The Border Patrol is adding manpower along the TexasMexico border with
offensives such as Operation Rio Grande, which targets the boundary between
Brownsville and Laredo.

But forces are thin upriver in places such as Maverick County, where
ranchers are arming themselves with assault rifles to patrol their property
and in some cases making citizen's arrests.

The ranchers say they would prefer troops, which at one point this year
appeared to be a possibility. But a measure calling for the authorization of
up to 10,000 troops to be used in controlling illegal drugs and immigration
died in Congress.

That vote came after the military suspended its antidrug operation along
the border following the shooting death of a U.S. high school student in the
border town of Redford last spring.