Texas officials are asking patients about their citizenship or immigration status to assess the costs of care for undocumented immigrants. At the same time, the state is purchasing large plots of land in the Rio Grande Valley to help build a border wall and offering land to the incoming Donald Trump administration to help carry out its mass deportation plans. However, a 2006 study found undocumented immigrants contributed more to Texas than they cost the state,and the state hasn't conducted a new one in nearly two decades.
The 2006 analysis, conducted by then-Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, found that undocumented immigrants living in Texas in 2005 contributed more than $1.6 billion in state revenues, exceeding the $1.2 billion in services they received. Strayhorn's study also found that deporting the 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas at the time could cost the state $17.7 billion in gross domestic product (GDP), as reported by the Texas Tribune.
