I do find it ironic that such busing is described in left-wing media as wreaking havoc on the northern and eastern cities to which the migrants are being bused. For some reason, that shouldn't be those states' problem, but it should be Texas' problem. WTF? If Texas doesn't want the influx, then we're supposed to believe it's because of racism and xenophobia; but, if New York or DC doesn't want them either, then we're supposed to be sympathetic. Well, I guess, maybe Texas should have thought of that before they went and put their border next to Mexico...
I haven't seen anything saying the destination cities were claiming to have havoc wreaked on them, or that they claimed they didn't want them, and I don't think any of that is true.* The depiction I have always seen was more of a reaction of "what the heck, we can help these people, but why is Texas not taking care of their own people?" I've also seen some state and local officials express a desire to be the recipient of the next busload of migrants, seeing it as an elegant solution to labor shortages.
Were I a Texas resident, I would staunchly oppose these policies not only on humanitarian grounds, but also on the fact that it simply isn't a good use of tax money to be paying for transportation to rid itself of a potential contributor to the economy. (Even if a migrant were to send 100% of their savings back to their country of origin, they still must acquire food and housing in the US, and the value added to a product by the migrant's labor will be retained by the US company that employed them.)
But, anyway, that's all tangential to race. Are white Venezuelans and Mexicans being given preferential treatment over black Haitians and indigenous Guatemalans? Or do you just think of everyone from south of the border as "not white"?
I'm not going to get into this too deeply because it is not a subject where (not experiencing it myself), I know enough to confidently give a summary of the situation with any accuracy. But in short, yes, there are distinctions between migrants from differing countries. But they are sort of irrelevant for the sorts of social problems being discussed, because the starkest division line is really "majority/not in majority". Put simply, I wouldn't expect anyone who feels strong animosity against Mexican immigrants to suddenly change their tune and go "Oh, you're a
Guatemalan immigrant? Well, why didn't you say so? Sorry about that!"
You also claim that not being a Christian has "major downsides" in Texas. Would you please go into more detail about that? I'm scratching my head, trying to figure out what disadvantages non-Christians in Texas might have—you know, in a state where a full one-fourth of adults 'seldom' or 'never' attend any religious services, Christian or otherwise.
I'll shift here to speak about my personal experiences as a non-Christian in Oklahoma, which I would expect to be more or less the same as in Texas due to the cultural similarities between the two. The chief problem here, which as far as I can see is shared by Texas, is that there is a base assumption that the only acceptable source of morality is the Christian faith, and that government policy must therefore necessarily be based on what is generally assumed to be Christian doctrine. (Whether this is actually true or not. The most devout Christians I know personally are typically quite acutely aware that what God's word actually is tends to be quite open to interpretation in practice, and what gets cited politically as "Christian values" are sometimes not actually present in the text of the Bible.)
And so the Christian way of doing things becomes the government way of doing things, when it comes to policies like:
- marriage (in Oklahoma one cannot get married without the signature of an ordained minister whose credentials are on file with the state)
- abortion (so much has been written about it elsewhere there's scarcely any point to debating the merits for and against it here, but it is included because the authors of the most recent bills on this subject have explicitly cited the Bible as the source of their beliefs for why the legislation is necessary)
- school prayer (a pastor always gave a prayer over the PA system at football games, either immediately before or after the Star Spangled Banner and school fight song, and I seem to recall having them even at non-football marching band events; the problem with this is there is no way to respectfully excuse oneself from participating in one of these without calling attention to one's lack of faith and thus presenting oneself as a target for bullying and social shunning)
- liquor policy (it is illegal to operate a liquor store on Thanksgiving or Christmas, or between midnight and 8 am any other day; there are some complicated restrictions on what grocery stores are allowed to sell that I don't quite understand fully as I don't drink)
These are just the first issues that come to mind; there are assuredly others. Now, you may say that these policies are enacted by the democratically-elected Legislature, and thus Oklahoma is getting the government its voters want. And that's a valid argument. However, the practical effect of it is to bind those to Christian morality those who have never agreed to and don't believe in it. The 25th of December has no religious significance to me at all, yet if I have a few friends over and we decide we want to have a few drinks, we are not granted the freedom to purchase any because of the doctrine of somebody else's religion.
All of this is apparently seen by the electorate here as a feature, not a bug. To be nominated for office, a candidate must underscore their Christian faith in every advertisement they run. The winner is generally the one who manages to illustrate that they are a better Christian than the opponent. Little is said about issues actually facing the state, unless the proposed solution to them can be used to illustrate the soundness of the candidate's Christian faith.
And so if someone is not Christian, the only real way to avoid being bound by Christian morality is to avoid being bound by Oklahoma law altogether. The only way to do that, of course, is to leave the state.
This is before we get into the non-governmental implications of not being of the majority religion. One example is that my wife has had extreme difficulty finding a competent therapist that does not use Christianity as part and parcel of their therapeutic practice; she outright had one therapist tell her that her professionally-diagnosed clinical depression was due to her being "mad at God" and essentially that she needed to get right with a God she didn't believe in before the therapist could help her. This has left her with little progress in actually getting treatment for her condition.
This is all just what someone who is not religious would experience. People who have non-Christian religious beliefs face an additional constellation of issues on top of these. I can't imagine any of the employers here would be too accommodating of an observant Jew that wants time off for Yom Kippur, other than to the extent that federal law requires it. (And maybe not even to that extent. Employers in all 50 states sometimes employ the tack of "Yes, what we're doing is blatantly against federal employment law, but what are you going to do about it? You need us to keep your house, do you really want to risk that to raise a stink?")
In summary, were I to advise a non-Christian as to which state they should live in, I wouldn't recommend moving to Oklahoma or most of the states that border it.
* This is especially true of Massachusetts. I have, in a few places online, mentioned that I am thinking about moving to another state, and without fail someone from Massachusetts will immediately respond saying that I would be welcome there and asking me to consider it as an option. It would certainly be tempting, if I weren't concerned my southern-Californian wife would freeze to death in the winter.