No that is not the idea. It is an attempt to turn south texas into a "little Mexico". Squatters in other words.
Uh, don't these areas have zoning and building code ordinances? Fine the heck out of the developers.
Better idea: Since most of the people in the colonias are ILLEGALS, why don't we call in INS, the Border Patrol and Los Diablos Tejanos (that's the Texas Rangers for those of you in Rio Houston) AND SEND THEM BACK TO MEXICO!
It seems illegal immigration has other negative consequences.
Colonia Ping!
So, when "colonias" are outlawed, where will the folks live who can only afford a "colonia?"
Oh, that's right: government-subsidized apartments.
Why don't these apparently worthless county commissioners do something on their own? Are building and sanitation laws all dictated by the state? Don't the local counties have authority to enact and enforce building, zoning, land use, and health ordinances?
Richard Estrada: Colonias shouldn't morph into colonies
http://www.dallasnews.com/editorial/columnists/0827edit1estrad.htm
08/27/99
Just call it the "c" word. Call it that because, among the many hot-button terms in the spirited debate over the issues of immigration and language, few are more sensitive than the word "colonization."
But as the unsettling story of the former colonia of El Cenizo, Texas, continues to unfold, ignoring the "c" word along the border and around the nation no longer is a viable option.
The municipal government of the Rio Grande town of 7,800, located 20 miles downstream from Laredo, still is provoking nationwide commentary two weeks after it approved two blockbuster ordinances that have drawn the ire of Americans everywhere.
One declared that official business would be conducted in Spanish; the other threatened that any employee found cooperating with federal immigration authorities would be fired. Shocked by all the attention they immediately began to receive, El Cenizo commission members defended their moves as examples of democracy in action.
Were the ordinances that? If the point was to serve what some on the City Commission say are the 80 percent of El Cenicenos who are monolingual Spanish speakers and an estimated 1,500 undocumented immigrants, another question begs to be asked: How did the situation get to this point? Against the backdrop of the local government's preference for Spanish over English and a blatant insult to federal immigration authorities, Americans now must begin addressing the question of when a colonia becomes a colony.
In the 1980s, many Texans began to learn about the existence of hundreds of substandard subdivisions along the border. Unlike typical housing tracts, in which the price of basic services was included in the price of a home, the colonia plots lacked running water, sewerage, electricity and the like.
The unincorporated subdivisions often were sold by farmers or speculators who wanted to profit from otherwise worthless land. Because only the most desperate and impoverished individuals would want to build a home on land that was unincorporated and lacking in basic services, the buyers often turned out to be immigrants, legal or illegal.
Driven by humanitarian considerations, state voters approved the use of bond revenue for extending basic services to the colonias in 1989. But the challenge was found to be so great that another bond election was held in 1991, and it, too, was passed. Eventually, hundreds of millions of federal dollars began to be dedicated for the purpose of upgrading the colonias along the Texas-Mexico border.
Defenders and apologists for the colonia system routinely argued that most residents were legal immigrants and that colonias were a reflection of the need for more low-cost housing. But they failed to note that nearly 3 million previously illegal newcomers were given amnesty in 1986 and that their legal status and that of close relatives spring from the federal government having winked at an original act of illegal immigration.
Helping people obtain basic services is a good idea. Winking at more illegal immigration and leaving the levels of legal immigration on automatic pilot, in the knowledge that a colonia-like phenomenon will continue, are not.
The argument that a colonia is a colony has its limits, to be sure. But consider this: One of the most important elements of Mexican foreign policy is to maximize the emigration of Mexican citizens to the United States by lobbying on U.S. soil for high levels of legal immigration and fighting or attenuating U.S. laws and strategies designed to challenge illegal immigration. Mexican officials concerned about a labor surplus in their country even have spoken openly about creating an Israeli-type lobby for Mexico among people of Mexican origin in the United States.
The liberal penchant for ignoring such infringements on national sovereignty is well known. But even libertarian conservatives in the business community are indifferent to the matter. They tend to be fearful of any rhetoric or action that might impede the mass influx of inexpensive foreign labor.
An exaggeration? In 1990, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal proposed a five-word amendment to the Constitution, "There shall be open borders." In moving closer and closer toward that dubious recommendation, it isn't the City Commission of tiny El Cenizo that should be held accountable by the American people; it is their own elected representatives in Congress.
Richard Estrada is an associate editor of The Dallas Morning News editorial page. His e-mail address is restrada@dallasnews.com.
BTT