Immigration talk has been big news in the U.S., especially under the last two administrations. Texas has been at the center of much of this news. As Texas has seen an influx of “non-Texans” moving to the State, we’ve also seen an influx of immigrants from Latin American countries. These two trends may have more in common than originally thought.
Growing up on the U.S.-Mexico border, I’ve witnessed different waves of immigration, but with 30-plus years as an expert in Hispanic marketing, this wave is very different.
Findings from Sensis Research and Welcome Tech’s New Hispanic Immigrant (NHI) Report suggest that the most recent Hispanic immigrants are much more educated than prior waves. In the NHI Study, 58% of Texas Hispanic immigrants who arrived in the U.S. within the past two years have at least associate’s degrees, compared to just 38% who arrived in the U.S. within the past 10 years and now live in Texas. Compared to the general Texas population, the 2022 Census Bureau found that 41.7% of Texans 25 and over (and only 26% of Hispanics 25 and older) have at least an associate’s degree. This is a major statistical difference.
There could be a few reasons behind this trend. More recent immigrants in the NHI Study are younger and thus more likely to be in the age groups expected to pursue higher education (18 to 24 and 25 to 34) than immigrants who arrived over two years ago. There is also the global trend, especially in the U.S., of people pursuing more advanced degrees. In the U.S., for instance, the proportion of Latinas with a four-year college degree has nearly quadrupled in the last two decades, according to the UCLA Latino Policy Institute.
Another finding from the NHI Study suggests that these recent Texas Hispanic immigrants may h ave more in common with transplants from California or New York than with prior Hispanic immigrants in Texas. Many Hispanic immigrants do not arrive in Texas directly when they immigrate to the U.S. but rather choose to move to the state later. Eighteen percent of Texas respondents in the NHI Study arrived elsewhere in the U.S. but later moved to Texas. There could be a few reasons for this, such as a lower cost of living or already having family in Texas. For instance, NHI respondents in Texas report less trouble finding a place to live and are more likely to have started a family suggesting stability.
The process of immigrating to the U.S. has also become more difficult and expensive, meaning it may self-select for more educated individuals with the means and not just the motivation to move to a new country. In the NHI Study, making more money was the most popular reason for immigrating to the U.S. among the most recent immigrants. Safety was the most popular reason for the older group. Inflation may be fueling this as well, as 84% of most recent Hispanic immigrants in the NHI report that prices in their home countries have gone exponentially high in the past year, versus just 57% of them saying that prices in the U.S. have gone significantly high during the same period.
Other findings from the NHI show the extent to which these more recent Texas Hispanic immigrants value education. More recent Texas Hispanic immigrants are twice as likely than those who immigrated over two years ago to say that access to better education was one of their principal factors in immigrating to the U.S. (19% versus 10%). The most recent Texas Hispanic immigrants are more aware of how to validate their education credentials in the U.S. versus immigrants who arrived over two years ago (29% versus 21%).
Another key contrast arose in the NIH Study. While recent Texas Hispanic immigrants are much more likely to be from Mexico than Hispanic immigrants in the rest of the country, a change is occurring. In the NHI’s Texas sample, more recent Hispanic immigrants are much less likely to be from Mexico than those who arrived two to10 years ago, 14% versus 40%. Additionally, they are much more likely to be from Cuba (33% versus 15%), and Venezuela, (26% versus 13%), as shown in the table below. This aligns with a report from a Houston 2023 Migration Policy Institute Study which found that Houston’s metropolitan area saw a 464% increase in immigrants from Venezuela and a 259% increase in Cuban immigrants from 2006 to 2021. Additionally, research from Pew and Migrationpolicy.org shows that immigrants from these countries tend to be the most educated Hispanic immigrants, further contributing to this trend of why we’re seeing Hispanic immigrants in Texas being more educated.
| What countrywere you All respondents living in born in? Texas (n=106) | Arrived in U.S. less than 2 years (n=58) | Arrived in U.S. 2-10 years ago (n=48) | |
| Colombia | 6% | 9% | 2% |
| Cuba | 25% | 33% | 15% |
| E l Salvador | 8% | 9% | 8% |
| Honduras | 9% | 7% | 13% |
| Mexico | 25% | 14% | 40% |
| Nicaragua | 2% | 0% | 4% |
| Venezuela | 20% | 26% | 13% |
| All other | 5% | 3% | 6% |
What does all of this mean for Texas? It means that we are getting a new wave of Texas Hispanics who are a more educated labor force than what we already had homegrown. What’s more with them being bilingual, the implications for international business with Latin America is an opportunity Texas businesses can capitalize on. The current administration is allowing asylum seekers from Venezuela and Cuba to work while their claims are being processed. This is a significant advantage for Texas businesses who have been wringing their hands at the lack of skilled labor in our State. While this influx of talent may be temporary, time will tell what impact it has on the Texas economy and our future growth.
Methodology
In late 2023, as part of our New Hispanic Immigrant study Sensis Research and Welcome Tech conducted two in-depth interviews with Hispanic immigrants who had moved to Texas from Latin America within the past 6 months. Drawing on these interviews, we then fielded an online survey of 106 recent Hispanic immigrants living in Texas.
- ● 58 of these respondents had arrived in the U.S. within the past 2 years
- ● 48 arrived between 2 and 10 years ago.
- For more information about our methodology, including our full sample sizes beyond the State of Texas, please click here.
- Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Karla Fernández Parker, managing director of Sensis, an independent multicultural marketing agency. The column appears in The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service with the permission of the author.