Texas' population has nearly doubled in the past four decades, surging from about 16 million in 1983 to over 30 million today. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Texas adds about 8,700 people each week, and is one of America's fastest-growing states. In addition, demographers predict the Lone Star State will add another 14 million people by 2060.

This growth inevitably leads to urban sprawl, as all these new residents need more homes to live in, offices to work in, and roads to travel on. Between 1982 and 2017, Texas lost 6,634 square miles of open space to urban sprawl. About 70 percent of that land loss resulted from population growth.

Nevertheless, Texans largely disapprove of all the bulldozing and building. Most Texans want to slow or end their state's population growth. They're justifiably worried that the current pace of growth will inevitably mean more urban sprawl and a lower quality of life.

Rather than address the root cause of urban sprawl, some believe Texas can indefinitely add more residents as long as builders expand up, and not out -- packing in more high-rises and apartment buildings into urban cores, rather than sprawling into the countryside. But this strategy has had only limited success in saving rural land from development because it is readily overwhelmed by the primary cause of sprawl -- population growth, which is being driven by federal immigration policies.

The current pace of Texas' growth isn't sustainable, and federal immigration policy isn't helping. Last federal fiscal year, U.S. border officials reported more than 2.3 million encounters with illegal crossers -- an all-time high. This fiscal year, encounters have topped 1.5 million. Unless this surge is stopped, the resulting population growth and its negative impacts will affect all states, but especially those along the southern border.

Texans recognize the recklessness of adding waves of migrants their state can't sustainably support. Rasmussen and NumbersUSA recently (March 2023) conducted a survey, and found that more than 80 percent of Texans want population growth to slow down or stop (full results here). Nearly 6 in 10 want the U.S. government to reduce annual immigration levels.

Please join the effort to establish responsible immigration limits that are necessary to save the dwindling open spaces of Texas from destruction.



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