Research sheds light on status of illegal aliens in Texas, U.S. By Richard Fish Austin Bureau of The News AUSTIN — New studies indicate there are fewer undocumented Mexican workers in Texas than previously estimated and show some surprising data about the con- ditions of their lives and work in the United States. Texas had a total illegal immi- grant population in 1980 of about 750,000, according to University of Texas researchers who analyzed United States and Mexican census data for the Governor's Task Force on Illegal Aliens. That number contrasts sharply Continued from Page 1A. • About 80 percent of those in- terviewed who admitted they were illegal aliens said they had been in the United States for more than a year. Seventy percent of those said that in the past five years they had made no crossings of the border or only one. That figure conflicts with some past portrayals of illegal aliens as members of a vast, fluid work force that moves back and forth across the border one or more times a year. N Interviewing workers with Spanish surnames in seven market centers throughout the state, the surveyors found a higher propor- tion of illegal aliens at job sites in Dallas and Houston than they did in El Paso, the Rio Grande Valley and in other border locations. Terrance said the study so far admittedly has not concentrated on agricultural employment, since it tlas been conducted during the off- season for most farm work. But he said the findings about urban em- ployment correspond with some Past studies that found as much as )0 percent of the illegal alien work ..orce was in urban, not agricul- .ural, occupations. "It probably is a response to where jobs are plentiful and pay is petter," Tarrance said. • The survey indicates that Aispanic-Americans and illegal -then workers perceive little differ- ence in the way they are treated by their employers and only modest lifferences in salary levels. Ac- cording to the survey, undocu- mented workers make about 25 cents per hour less than their legal co-workers. • The illegal alien is younger, more likely to be married and less educated than his co-workers who are Hispanic-Americans. Although ..he education level of illegal aliens --- five years — lags well behind lispanic-American co-workers, (11 /ears), it still is higher than the Aexican average (a little over 3 .ears). On the average, illegal aliens in- .erviewed were 23 years old (their lispanic-American counterparts with estimates of an illegal alien population in the state that have ranged as high as three million. And preliminary results of a sur- vey of undocumented Mexican workers found that they were con- centrated more in Dallas and Hous- ton than along the border. The sur- vey's preliminary results also indi- cated the illegal aliens are paid and treated like their legal counter- parts, and they are unlikely to re- turn to Mexico once they've found work in the United States. V. Lance Tarrance and Associ- ates of Houston, a polling firm that conducts political and issue sur- veys for Gov. Bill Clements, study- ing Mexican workers in the United States under contract to the task force. Tarrance cautioned that the re- sults are tentative and based on fewer than 800 interviews with lim- ited classes of workers. But Tar- rance said he believes the findings represent a pattern that will be borne out in further sampling. He said the survey is only about half- finished, and he declined to make available copies of preliminary re- sults. Tarrance did not say what the survey's margin of error would be. Among the findings so far: See RESEARCH on Page 7A. were 29), and 60 percent of them were married, a higher percentage than the U.S. citizens who worked ' Poi f/4 r alongside them. Although they are - not in in farm jobs now, Tarrance's re- . searchers found most illegal aliens " had been agricultural workers be- fore they emigrated to the United ' States. • Response to the survey indi- cated that illegal aliens use welfare and social services at a lower rate than their counterparts who are U.S. citizens and at a much lower rate than Mexican workers who have achieved some sort of perma- nent, documented resident status — the so-called "green card" work- ers. Tarrance said he beleived that fear of being documented on a wel- fare agency's computer contrib- uted to low utilization of social services. For example, 5 percent of the respondents said they had re- ceived food stamps, as compared to 17 percent of the workers who were, U.S. citizens and 27 percent of those who had permanent resident sta- tus. The survey also asked those who said they were illegal aliens about their preferences toward proposed policies dealing with illegal aliens. . One such proposal has been pushed by Clements, who has sug- gested registering "guest workers"' from Mexico and issuing visas to them. Tarrance's researchers found about 31 percent favored a guest worker program, with limited stays in the United States but legal status while they were here. About 19 per- _ cent wanted to be able to return to Mexico to live and work, while 49 percent wanted to be able to re- main permanently in the United States. Tarrance cautioned against going too far in making policy deci- sions about illegal immigration un- til more study results can be com- piled. While he said he is confident the survey provides a representa- tive picture of aliens at work in the areas surveyed, he said other types of employment have not yet been reviewed. " f 142._