Illegal immigration a hot tamale topic in Texas

On his way to capturing the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick routinely asked supporters if we should “stop the invasion” into Texas.

Huzzah! many replied.

An activist with Battleground Texas, the pro-Democratic group, suggests voters in November will recoil at what Patrick, a Houston state senator, has said. Jeremy Bird said in a Bloomberg TV interview that Patrick has “called immigration into Texas an invasion” and “said immigrants coming into Texas bring ‘third-world diseases.’ “

True, we found, while noting weaknesses in what Patrick previously said.

Also in a TV appearance, Gov. Rick Perry said a record number of immigrants not from Mexico have  been crossing the Rio Grande into Texas.

That seems so. We didn’t come up with apprehension figures for every year through history. But available figures show the Border Patrol apprehended more people from countries other than Mexico along the border through the first eight months of fiscal 2014 than it apprehended in any of the preceding 17 years.

We’re also reviewing Perry’s additional claim in the interview that the border-crossers are “coming from states like Syria that have substantial connections to terrorist regimes and terrorist operations.”

Both completed fact checks appear to the right.

As our headline says; this is a hot tamale topic.