Thread: Hinojosa amendment guts sanctuary cities bill

Hinojosa amendment guts sanctuary cities bill

May 18, 2011 9:04 PM

State Sen. Juan “Chuyâ€

Texas legislature's sanctuary cities bill takes a Demo hit

By Zahira Torres \ Austin Bureau
Posted: 05/19/2011 12:00:00 AM MDT

AUSTIN -- Passage of a bill that would allow local police to enforce federal immigration laws seemed a foregone conclusion until Wednesday.

That's when a Senate committee gutted the legislation and replaced it with another unrelated bill.

The maneuver stemmed from a dispute among Republicans in the state House and the Senate.

State Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, last month passed SB 9 -- a large border security bill that, among other things, puts into law a policy that allows the Department of Public Safety to check the citizenship status of Texans before issuing driver's licenses.

That bill has been stuck in a House committee ever since. Williams, the Senate chairman of the Transportation and Homeland Security committee, on Wednesday made clear that he was willing to derail one of Gov. Rick Perry's emergency items if the state House did not move his border security bill forward.

"This is an important bill," Williams said. "We want to see it pass, and we're going to do everything we can."

The substitution, proposed by state Sen. Chuy Hinojosa, D-McAllen, is a large blow to the sanctuary cities legislation and to Perry's agenda.

The fate of both bills is uncertain.

The swapped bill will have to return to the House, where representatives will likely vote against the change. It would then move to a conference committee, where lawmakers from both sides would try to reach an agreement.

Lawmakers could decide to combine both bills into one, though Williams has said he does not support such a move. If the conference committee does reach an agreement, it would be taken back to both chambers for a vote.

Another option, Williams said, is that if his border security bill passes out of the House committee, then the Senate committee would again consider the sanctuary cities bill.

Still, he said, time is ticking away on the sanctuary cities bill because only two weeks are left in the session.

"We'll just have to see how it works out," Williams said. "That's the mystery of the legislative process. We don't really know."

If time runs out, Perry could revive the bill in a special session. But some lawmakers believe the governor may let the bill die because of a steady pushback he has received from law enforcement and the business community.

The sanctuary cities bill would withhold state grant money from local governments and law enforcement if they prohibit employees from questioning the immigration status of anyone the employees detain.

Law enforcement leaders in the state have said the bill amounts to an unfunded mandate that would leave counties saddled with the costs of housing undocumented immigrants in jails, providing officer training and fighting lawsuits that may arise. They argue that the measure would tear down the trust that law enforcement has established with communities, make people less willing to report crimes and lead to slower response times by law officers.

State Sen. José RodrÃ*guez, D-El Paso, an opponent of the legislation, said the bill may still have a chance.

"I've already learned that in this business, people can always work something out," RodrÃ*guez said.

Luis Figueroa, legislative attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he was wary of the changes to the bill.

"To us, this is substituting a bad bill for another bad bill," Figueroa said. "In theory, this could turn into a super bad bill with a combination of (both bills)."

Under SB 9, law enforcement would be required to check the immigration status of every person booked into a Texas jail, using a federal immigration enforcement program called Secure Communities. El Paso County uses the program only for suspects arrested on suspicion of more-serious crimes, not for Class C misdemeanor offenses, which include traffic violations.

Other provisions of the bill include one that would require county officials to report a monthly count of undocumented immigrants in jails as a way to calculate the costs to the state. In addition, under the bill, people who finance, direct or supervise an act by criminal street gangs would face a mandatory sentence of at least 25 years and up to 99 years in prison.

El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal, Sheriff's Office Cmdr. Gomecindo Lopez and businessman José Luis Mauricio Esparza traveled to Austin on Wednesday to speak against the sanctuary cities bill. They left without testifying after the bill was gutted.

Zahira Torres may be reached at ztorres@elpasotimes.com; 512-479-6606.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_18092756