The illegal immigrant named Texan of the Year

DALLAS — Because everybody in Texas "has felt the tidal wave of his presence," the illegal immigrant has been named the Texan of the Year by the Dallas Morning News.

"We can't seem to live with him and his family, and if we can live without him, nobody's figured out how," the report posted on the Dallas Morning News' Web site on Saturday said.

The newspaper identified illegal immigration as perhaps the largest story in the nation and in the state in 2007. Texas' immigrant population has increased by nearly 33 percent since 2000, according to an analysis of government data by the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.

In that period, the number of total immigrants entering the country has exceeded all previous historical eras. Half the immigrants in Texas — about 7 percent of all Texans — are here illegally.

"The illegal immigrant is the waiter serving margaritas at our restaurant table, the cook preparing our enchiladas.

"He works grueling hours at a meatpacking plant, carving up carcasses of cattle for our barbecue (he also picks the lettuce for our burgers). He builds our houses and cuts our grass. She cleans our homes and takes care of our children."

The newspaper says that to their champions, illegal immigrants are "decent, hardworking people who, like generations of European immigrants before them, just want to do better for their families."

But the newspaper says that to opponents of illegal immigration, those who come to the United States illegally "are essentially lawbreakers who violate the nation's borders. They use public resources, schools, hospitals to which they aren't entitled and expect to be served in a foreign language. They're rapidly changing Texas neighborhoods, cities and culture, and not always for the better. Those who object get tagged as racists."

This is not the first time the paper's editorial board has gone with a composite rather than an individual. In 2005, editorial writers selected the city of Houston as its Texan of the Year for its response to Hurricane Katrina.

Last year's Texan of the Year was former police officer Roy Velez, whose two sons died in Iraq and Afghanistan.