Senate panel considers border security bill
By Brandi Grissom / Austin Bureau
El Paso Times

May 15, 2007

AUSTIN -- Texas senators on Monday said they wanted to ensure that border security dollars are spent to dismantle drug cartels and not to track down undocumented immigrants.
"Texas has no place in immigration enforcement," said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, a member of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee that is set to vote Wednesday on border security legislation.

The bill, which the Texas House approved last week, would outline how the state should distribute millions Gov. Rick Perry has requested for increased border security.

The House has approved spending about $100 million on border security that would mostly go to border county sheriffs through Perry's Office of Homeland Security.

The Senate, however, has approved a budget that would spend just more than half that amount for border security, and direct those dollars go to the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Senate plan sets aside about $10 million in federal grants Perry could give sheriffs.

House and Senate budget writers working on a compromise tentatively agreed late last week to spend about $65 million on border security, with most of it going to the public safety department.

Since late 2005, Perry has sent border sheriffs millions to increase patrols.

El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego has said those efforts have deterred crime locally and that his officers have not targeted undocumented immigrants.

Dimmitt County Sheriff Michael "Doug" Sample told legislators his officers do not want to become immigration agents.

"We're just working our county and trying to prevent the criminal element from going further into our state," Sample said.

But Shapleigh said past border security operations targeted undocumented immigrants more than drug cartels that cause much of the border-related crime.

Shapleigh said he would work to remove all measures in the bill that refer to immigration, including a section that would allow cities and counties to have officers trained as immigration agents and other sections that would penalize local governments for adopting policies that don't allow full enforcement of some immigration laws.

Money for border security, Shapleigh said, should be used to coordinate with federal officials and state agencies working along trafficking corridors criminal organizations use.


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