The Austin Statesman published a most interesting story about Mexican entrepreneurs and well-to-do families fleeing Mexico’s drug war and settling in Texas.
They are legal and they bring jobs.
Many receive visas that give them legal residency in return for investing large sums of money in the U.S. and creating jobs. Some receive EB-5 visas, given to immigrants who invest at least $1 million — and in some cases $500,000 — and create or preserve 10 jobs.
They represent the best tradition of America’s immigration history: the melting pot.
One immigrant prefers Austin because:
What we want is our kids to learn English in the proper way, and if we moved to Houston, we’d be speaking Spanish 90 percent of the time. So Austin is better — it helps us get to know the culture, and if you are trying to do business with American people, you have to get to know the culture.
He:
[M]arveled at Austin’s openness and the lack of a rigid class system that can define social and business life in Mexico. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO or an employee,” he said. “I love that camaraderie.”
They support traditional values.
Bud Roland, a local Catholic priest, noted:
The newcomers “share a lot of the same things as our original community: They are businessmen, highly educated; they make a lot of money; they share our Catholic faith.”
As the priest noted, these are our kind of people. What are we doing about it?
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