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Texas Democrats are calling a bill filed last week by Rep. Matt Schaefer, a Tyler Republican, the state’s “show me your papers” law.
HB 20 would create a state border police force called the Border Protection Unit. The unit would be made up of licensed state or local law enforcement officers, as well as “law-abiding citizens without a felony conviction,” according to the bill.
While these law-abiding citizens generally wouldn’t have the authority to make arrests, they could be granted that authority if trained and authorized by the governor.
Under normal circumstances, the unit would be allowed to arrest, detain and deter individuals who are illegally crossing the border by using non-deadly force, according to the bill. This unit would have immunity from criminal and civil liability and would be responsible for overseeing the construction and maintenance of walls, fences and other physical barriers along the border.
The bill says that if the Legislature finds, or if the governor declares or has declared, a state of invasion or imminent danger, the Border Protection Unit would be granted some special authority. Under these circumstances, the unit would be allowed to deter or repel people attempting to enter the state illegally at locations outside a port of entry. The unit would also have authority to deport people who have been observed crossing the Mexican border illegally and have been apprehended or detained in the immediate vicinity of the border. Members of the unit would be allowed to use force to “repel, arrest, and detain transnational cartel operatives in the border region,” according to the bill.
A member of the unit must be a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident; a graduate of a Texas police academy; have experience as a sworn law enforcement officer; or be appointed as a law-abiding citizen. The bill would also make it a third-degree felony to trespass onto Texas private property from another jurisdiction.
“House Bill 20 does have a lot of problems right off the bat.” – Bernardo Rafael Cruz, ACLU
HB 20 was listed as one of Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan’s priority bills this legislative session. In a post on Twitter announcing his priority legislation, Phelan wrote, “Addressing our state’s border crisis is a must-pass issue this session.”
But the bill has drawn scrutiny from others, such as Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, who say it’s unconstitutional and could lead to racial profiling.
“HB 20 is an egregious assault on our basic civil liberties and our core values as a nation of immigrants,” Hinojosa said in a statement. “As we have seen in past iterations of this racist, fear-mongering concept, ‘Show Me Your Papers’ laws only stand to inflict constant anxiety and mental trauma upon all people who even look like they could be undocumented immigrants – whatever that means.”
The Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC) of the Texas House of Representatives is the largest and oldest Latino caucus in the country. The caucus is calling Schaefer’s HB 20 the “extreme vigilante death squad policy.”
“This dangerous, radical, and unconstitutional proposal, which empowers border vigilantes to hunt migrants and racially profile Latinos, is going to result in the death of innocent people,” the group’s chairwoman, Victoria Neave Criado, said in a statement on social media. “MALC is going to do everything in our power to kill this legislation just as Latino State Representatives for the past five decades have fought against Klan-like proposals.”
While Schaefer did not respond to the Observer‘s request for comment, he did respond to MALC’s statement about his bill, saying the Border Protection Unit would be “an organization of professional men and women hired/trained under the authority of the [Department] of Public Safety to protect Texans.”
HB 20 has been compared to Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, which was passed in 2010. This law allowed police to demand “papers” and investigate immigration status if they suspected that a person is undocumented. It also allowed police to arrest people without a warrant if they believed they were a deportable immigrant. Under the law, immigrants who didn’t carry federal registration papers would be guilty of a state crime. Immigrants who sought or accepted work without authorization would also be guilty of a state crime under the bill.
The Arizona law was eventually challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that most of it was unconstitutional, according to the ACLU. The only provision that wasn’t struck down was the one allowing officers to demand papers and investigate immigration status if they suspect someone is undocumented.
Bernardo Rafael Cruz, an attorney for ACLU Texas, told the Observer HB 20 goes even further than Arizona’s SB 1070. “House Bill 20 does have a lot of problems right off the bat,” Cruz said. “It’s really trying to create its own border patrol and really trying to enact its own version of immigration law and immigration law enforcement.”
He said a big problem with that is it would violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution that gives the federal government jurisdiction over immigration enforcement.
“So hopefully representatives are aware of that and really try to avoid unnecessary efforts and unnecessary cost to taxpayers by having to litigate these issues, and try to look at the position itself and try to help border communities instead of taking this type of punitive measure that would really cause a lot more problems than any type of solutions,” Cruz said.
If enacted, the bill would go into effect on Sept. 1. The Border Protection Unit would operate through the end of 2030, at which time the legislature would need to either reauthorize it or abolish it.
