HOUSTON -- The way they keep pouring in is what gets to Herbert Mueller, a 61-year-old oil field roughneck who can't hide his irritation at what he thinks is happening to Texas.
"We used to have all white people working in the oil fields. Now we've got more Mexicans than white people. Companies like that cheap labor," the rig foreman said, peering out angrily from beneath his battered hard hat.
Everyone talks about the way illegal immigrants are perceived to be taking over Texas, Mr. Mueller said. But he made it clear that his concern is about jobs, not racism.
"It's our country; it ain't their country," Mr. Mueller said. "They'd sure holler if somebody went and tried to take their jobs."
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan is aiming right at the hearts of Texans such as Mr. Mueller when he talks about "America First" and getting control of U.S. borders.
In a state where the white and black populations are feeling increasingly overwhelmed by a flood of illegal immigrants from Latin America, Mr. Buchanan's recent proposal to barricade the Mexican border makes good sense to a lot of people.
It's the kind of thing many Texans have been grumbling about for a long time under their breath, and now they've got a presidential candidate saying it out loud.
Mr. Buchanan's call for fences and ditches to stop illegal immigration taps into a rich vein of Texas-size anxiety that could seriously erode President Bush's conservative support in his adopted home state, some political observers say.
Unemployment in Texas has jumped to 7.1 percent, the domestic oil business is in tatters, and workers are facing widespread layoffs. With one-third of Texans calling themselves independent voters, that combination could add up to a serious embarrassment for Mr. Bush in the Texas primary March 10.
The president will be challenged in Texas by Mr. Buchanan and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, along with two little-known candidates. The Texas Republican Party, which has pledged its support to Mr. Bush, scoffs at the idea that either Mr. Buchanan or Mr. Duke poses a serious threat to the president in Texas, the biggest prize of Super Tuesday, with 121 Republican delegates at stake.
Fred Meyer, the Texas Republican Party chairman, thinks Mr. Buchanan's immigration message won't make a dent in Mr. Bush's traditional Republican support.
