How state lawmakers are trying to crack down on illegal immigration

Lawmakers have filed at least nine similar bills that would require local law enforcement agencies enter into agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Under a 1996 federal immigration law, ICE can delegate local authorities to carry out certain types of immigration enforcement in local jails — where officers can be deputized to question inmates about their immigration status and to serve administrative warrants — and in the field, where officers can be permitted to question people about their immigration status through a model the Trump administration has revived after it fell into disuse following allegations it led to racial profiling.

Such programs serve as “force multipliers” for ICE, an agency of about 6,000 officers with limited resources, according to the federal agency, immigration lawyers and policing experts.

Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have called for Texas authorities to be required to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

While specifics vary, most of the proposed state laws share the same idea: Require local law enforcement to request entering into partnership agreements with ICE known as 287(g) agreements — a reference to the legal statute from which they originate.

Senate Bill 8, filed by Republican state Sen. Joan Huffman of Houston and Georgetown Republican Sen. Charles Schwertner, would require sheriffs in counties with more than 100,000 residents to request a 287(g) agreement with ICE.

Among the criticisms of 287(g) agreements is the potential extra costs for counties that devote resources to processing and jailing immigrants and face potential legal liabilities if an officer is accused of wrongdoing, such as violating a person’s civil rights. The bill would establish grants for sheriffs in counties with fewer than 1 million residents, but not for sheriffs of large Texas counties.

Patrick designated the bill a top priority of his for the legislative session even before it was filed.

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As of early March, 43 Texas law enforcement agencies already had 287(g) agreements in place, the majority of which are for the jail programs. Only the attorney general’s office, Nixon Police Department and sheriffs in Goliad and Smith counties had signed 287(g) agreements for the “task force model” that grants police limited immigration enforcement authority while conducting their routine duties.

Lawmakers are also looking at ways to study the costs of illegal immigration.

State Sen. Mayes Middleton’s Senate Bill 825 would task the Texas Department of Public Safety with conducting a study on the economic, environmental and financial impact of illegal immigration. The state last performed such a study in 2006, when then-state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn found that undocumented immigrants contributed more to Texas than they cost the state.

Meanwhile, House Bill 2587 by state Rep. Mike Olcott, R-Fort Worth, seeks to study the cost of providing hospital services to undocumented immigrants. Last summer, Abbott ordered hospitals to start asking patients for their citizenship status. Hospitals can’t refuse to provide medical treatment based on a patient’s answer.

Rep. Ryan Guillen, a Republican from Rio Grande City, has proposed expanding a fund the state established in 2023 to reimburse homeowners in border counties whose property has been damaged by border crime — which can include everything from migrants cutting fences while passing through their land to damage from high-speed police pursuits of suspected migrants and smugglers that end in a crash.

House Bill 246 would expand the potential sources of revenue for the fund so the attorney general’s office, which administers it, could accept donations, gifts and other revenue designated by the Legislature, which appropriated $18 million in state money for the fund over the 2023-24 biennium.

Lawmakers also have introduced bills that would require companies to use E-Verify — a federal government website that helps businesses determine whether an immigrant is legally allowed to work in the U.S. — if they want to bid for state contracts.

House Bill 1308 would require state agencies to only award contracts to businesses that participate in E-Verify. The proposal would also apply to subcontractors hired by a company with a state contract.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Carl Tepper, R-Lubbock, would also suspend the business license of any business that contracts with the state if they stopped using E-Verify during their state contract.

As part of Tepper’s bill, people who suspect a state agency has hired an undocumented person can send information to the Texas Attorney General’s office for possible investigation.

Like Tepper’s proposal, House Bill 2744, sponsored by state Rep. Cody Vasut, R-Angleton, would require all state contractors to use E-Verify, and would also impose a $10,000 fine for each undocumented worker a state contractor is caught employing.

For the past four years, the state has approached border landowners seeking permission to build barriers along the 1,200-mile-long Texas-Mexico border. But the state has faced a challenge in finding enough willing landowners to lease part of their land to the state.

House Bill 247, introduced by state Rep. Ryan Guillen, R-Rio Grande City, would give a property tax break to landowners who have allowed state or federal border barriers to be built on their property.

The proposal says the state tax break would be available to any landowners who allow the state or the federal government to install “a wall, barrier, fence, wire, road trench, technology” or any type of infrastructure “to surveil or impede the movement of persons or objects crossing the Texas-Mexico border.”

Another proposal, Senate Bill 316 by state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, would allow the state to use eminent domain to take private property for border wall construction. The proposal does not say how much money a private landowner would get if the government seizes their property. But under Texas law, the owner would “receive adequate compensation.”