Immigrant investors reconsider The Woodlands in age of Trump
Classmates tell a kid on the school bus that his family should start packing to move back to Mexico. A mom who speaks Spanish to her child endures rolled eyes and muttered complaints from others waiting in a checkout line. Chants of “build that wall” ring out at a community event.
Stories like these have dominated recent public-comment sessions at meetings of The Woodlands Township board, which responded last week by adopting a resolution that encouraged inclusiveness. But a climate described as increasingly unwelcoming to immigrants — encouraged, some residents say, by the comments and policies of President Donald Trump — is already taking a toll on the prosperous master-planned community.
“Sadly, we are moving back to Mexico this summer after a wonderful seven years of raising our children in this beautiful place,” Perla Soto told the township board on March 22. “Personal and professional reasons motivated this decision, but let me be honest — President Trump’s anti-Mexican policies gave us the last push.”
Soto said she and her friends are encountering hostility in The Woodlands that they didn’t experience a year ago. She and others attribute the change, at least in part, to Trump’s comments referring to Mexican immigrants as killers and rapists and to his administration’s aggressive moves to deport people who are in the U.S. illegally.
The Mexicans who have moved to The Woodlands in recent years are not killers or rapists. They are business owners, entrepreneurs and investors. They buy homes. They create jobs. If enough of them leave, the community could suffer economically.
Some of these immigrants chose The Woodlands in response to a marketing campaign targeting Mexicans who qualify for EB-5 visas, available to foreign nationals who have sufficient means to create jobs and invest capital in American communities.
Maitane Tidwell remembers seeing billboards in Mexico City encouraging wealthy Mexicans to buy homes or start businesses in The Woodlands.
“The campaign to bring Mexicans to The Woodlands worked. It was incredibly successful,” Tidwell, whose family moved to The Woodlands four years ago, told the township board. “Now let’s keep them here, and let’s continue to sell The Woodlands as the multicultural community that it was meant to be from its creation.”
Although its founder, the late George Mitchell, envisioned The Woodlands as an economically diverse community, it remains mostly affluent and mostly Anglo.
The median annual household income is more than $111,000, according to the township, with only about 20 percent of households earning less than $50,000. The most recent Census Bureau estimates show that The Woodlands is roughly 75 percent Anglo, 15 percent Latino, 5 percent Asian and 3 percent AfricanAmerican. The Latino population has increased from 12.3 percent in the 2010 census.
And The Woodlands, like Montgomery County as a whole, is Trump country. An enthusiastic crowd turned out to hear Trump speak last June at the Waterway Marriott Hotel, and five months later, the Trump-Mike Pence ticket prevailed in 89 of the county’s 90 precincts. The lone exception was a precinct in Conroe.
The words and deeds of the president of the United States set a powerful example. Tidwell told me she doesn’t believe the recent anti-immigrant behavior in The Woodlands is representative of the community; instead, the few who are responsible have been emboldened by the president.
A Mexican businesswoman who lived in The Woodlands until about two years ago made the same point as she described the fear and anxiety felt by her friends who still live in the community.
“I think that if the commander in chief discriminates, then he’s allowing that behavior,” said the woman, who now lives in Mexico City. She asked that I not use her name, noting that her family still owns a vacation house in The Woodlands.
Gordy Bunch, the township board chairman, said board members will continue to meet with community members to learn more about their concerns and will study actions taken by other communities to encourage tolerant, respectful behavior.
Bunch noted that he is Latino on his mother’s side, a fact that was overlooked by Latino residents who complained to him that they lacked representation on the board.
“There’s bias in both directions,” Bunch said.
Perhaps so. But it will take more than a resolution to change the attitudes that led to recent incidents of intolerance. The people responsible may be aware that the national leader their community preferred is being blamed for driving away productive, job-creating residents. But it’s doubtful they’d appreciate the irony.