The Unending Tolls Of Being Undocumented In Texas

For many young people in Texas, the winding down of summer means one thing: it’s officially back to school time. And for students of all ages, it should be an exciting opportunity. However, for thousands of Texas students, back to school is now synonymous with new emotional and financial hardships stemming from a legal decision that tossed out the Texas Dream Act, a lifeline for undocumented students to attend college in the lone star state.

The legal decision by a district court judge happened after a coordinated effort by the Justice Department and the Texas Attorney General’s office, which resulted in the swift termination of a law originally signed in 2001. Halting the Texas Dream Act has upended the lives of many Texas students as it no longer allows them to attend college at in-state tuition.  

But it’s all a part of a larger economic burden for undocumented young Texans. The second Trump administration has produced a cataclysmic sense of anxiety and fear among many immigrants in places like Texas. The health policy organization KFF recently produced a focus group highlighting the worries of many families with mixed-immigration status. They expressed apprehension over a whole host issues from the economy to obtaining health care to even going to work. For several of the participants, their concerns are so great that they are considering leaving the country, even though many have virtually no memory of their birth countries.

The everyday financial tolls of being undocumented were recently explored in a new book by Alix Dick and Stanford professor Antero Garcia. The Cost of Being Undocumented: One Woman’s Reckoning with America’s Inhumane Myth charts Dick’s journey from escaping the Sinaloa cartel to forging a life as an undocumented woman in America. The book weaves in Dick’s own struggles, like trying to treat a decaying tooth, into the larger picture of life as an undocumented immigrant.

Dick and Garcia spoke with Texas Signal about their book, and about their attempts to illuminate the myriad of ways being undocumented is so economically burdensome. Garcia describes the book as functionally a memoir, but it also takes a social science approach to exploring the costs of living undocumented in the United States.

When it comes to that decaying tooth, Dick recounts visiting several hospitals in California and being turned away despite her intense pain. That pain became so terrible she eventually lost nearly all her hearing in her left ear. And yet that myth of undocumented immigrants receiving things like free healthcare persists throughout the country. “How come nobody is talking about the cost of the many different ways undocumented people have to pay in a country that benefits from our cheap labor?” asks Dick.

There are other not-so-obvious costs that come with being undocumented that the book also explores. Garcia notes that love becomes one of those costs, because disclosing a potential non-legal status to a partner opens one up to potential domestic violence or exploitation. So something like going on a date, which should be innocuous, could turn serious. “It’s always life or death stakes,” says Garcia. 

For both Dick and Garcia, promoting the book months into this second Trump administration has both illuminated and heightened what they have charted in the book. “Things have been bad for undocumented immigrants for a very long time” said Dick. “We knew things [were] going to get bad, but what we are seeing now I don’t even know how to describe it.” 

In recent weeks it even feels like Texas has become even more hostile to the undocumented community, even beyond the Texas Dream Act erosion. The recent detainment of an immigration activist in Texas with DACA, a recognized legal status has sparked intense fear throughout the state. Catalina “Xochitl” Santiago was arrested at El Paso International Airport earlier this month and remains in ICE custody. After her arrest a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that “DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country.”

There have also been several arrests made at courthouses against people with scheduled hearings. Even those seeking asylum who thought their cases were on the verge of being processed are being notified that their cases have actually been dismissed. 

And then there’s health care, which Dick can even testify is hard to come by in seemingly safe blue states, for the undocumented. Now in Texas hospitals are required’ to report how much they are spending to treat undocumented citizens.

As for Dick and Garcia, they are continuing to promote their book, but even that has been altered to reflect the present reality of where we are as a country. They will be holding a virtual event on August 27. Their book is available wherever you buy books, including the independent bookstore hosting their event later in the month: Women & Children First.