A Texas Senate committee expanded a border-related bill to create a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence for human smugglers and to make it a crime for migrants to enter the state anywhere but a port of entry.
The bill’s opponents raised concerns that creating a new crime, and allowing the border unit to enforce it, would not give potential asylum-seekers an opportunity to provide an affirmative defense by requesting asylum or providing another legal reason to be in the United States. They also worried that the new mandatory 10-year minimum sentence for human smuggling would ensnare mostly young, disadvantaged U.S.
The bill placed the new border unit under the responsibility of the Department of Public Safety, requiring its employees to be licensed peace officers. The border unit also would be led by the chief of the Texas Rangers division. Similarly, Birdwell did not include language allowing the unit’s officers to “deter and repel” people trying to enter the country unlawfully. Immigrant rights advocates were concerned that the language was vague and could put migrants trying to enter the country at risk of excessive force.
Birdwell said the state has asked an “immense amount” from service members who were pulled away from families and jobs for a mission that’s lasted more than two years. Birdwell said the bill was creating a state crime that the new police unit would enforce. If no crime was suspected, he said, the unit would turn people over to federal authorities for processing.
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