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We Used to be Friends
Mariela Nuñez-Janes had her first dance with U.S. citizenship politics when she was six years old. After her Puerto Rican mother married her Venezuelan father, her mom acquired a Venezuelan passport to pair with the US passport that she already had. When Nuñez-Janes was born in Venezuela, she also had two passports. At least, up…
Dreamers, with a capital D, are people who immigrated to the US as minors. Another definition of dreamer is ‘one who has ideas or conceives projects regarded as impractical.’ In the state of Texas, you will find all sorts of dreamers, many of them existing in margins and spaces outside of what state lawmakers deem acceptable. They are conceiving new ideas, however impractical, and dreaming of different futures.
Not the Perfect Dreamer tells the raw, emotional, and imperfect stories of immigrants and children of immigrants living in Texas. You can listen, read, and watch their stories here. This is an ongoing multimedia journalism project. If you are an immigrant, or a child of immigrants living in Texas, and you would like to share your own story, please hit the button below.
Texas’s estimated population, as of 2024, is 31,000,000.1 The state’s immigrant population was about 5.46 million in 2023– almost 18% of Texas’s total population.2
An estimated 1,739,000 immigrants in Texas are undocumented.3 About 208,000 are immediately eligible for DACA4, but no new DACA applications have been processed since 2021.5
The Texas-Mexico border is 1,254 miles long.6 It makes up about half of the entire US-Mexico border.7
In 2021, Texas governor Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star– an initiative to further militarize the state’s southern border. OLS has cost taxpayers more than 11 billion dollars, deployed about 10,000 national guard members,8 and installed miles of concertina (razor) wire– a deterrence tactic which has caused many injuries to migrants.9
32 counties in Texas lie within 100 miles of the border.10
While billions of dollars are poured into the militarization of Texas’s southern border, the majority of these border counties have sustained poverty rates of 20% or higher since 1989. 11
In the 2024 election, Donald Trump won 26 of these counties. It’s the first time Texas’s border region has gone red since Texas became a state.12 Many borderland voters expressed that concerns over immigration and the border impacted their presidential vote.13
1United States Census Bureau
2Migration Policy Institute
3Migration Policy Institute
4Migration Policy Institute
5National Public Radio. Federal judge again declares that DACA is illegal
6,7Texas Department of Transportation
8The Texas Tribune. What is Operation Lone Star? Gov. Greg Abbott’s controversial border mission, explained.
9Associated Press. Texas trooper’s accounts of bloodied and fainting migrants on US-Mexico border unleashes criticism
10,11Texas Health and Human Services. Border Report Section 3 – Population and Demographics of the Texas-Mexico Border Region
12The Texas Tribune. Along the Texas-Mexico border, GOP enthusiasm mounts as Democrats defect over immigration concerns
13The Texas Tribune. Texas 2024 General Election results.