The governor said he plans Wednesday to meet in the Rio Grande Valley with new Homeland Security Chief John Kelly to discuss efforts that President Trump has said will include thousands of additional federal agents and the construction of a border wall.
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Rick Levy, secretary-treasurer of the Texas AFL-CIO, said he’d rather have heard Abbott talking about issues that families discuss around the dinner table.
Gov. Abbott also called for a state hiring freeze in most agencies, saying that would save $200 million in a tight budget year. It’s unclear whether the committee will vote on the measure later as the bill has been posted for another public hearing on Friday morning. The four priorities were Child Protective Services, amending the US Constitution, sanctuary cities and ethics. The bill by Sen. “Sheriff Hernandez’s policy is absolutely within the law of the land”. “You don’t get extra constitutional powers”.
The bill was amended earlier this week to boost penalties against any departments which refuse to enforce the law.
Sanctuary cities – or those cities that seek to “protect undocumented immigrants from deportation by limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities” – have become a hot-button issue in Texas, where some residents live mere miles away from active Mexican drug cartel strongholds.
According to Hernandez, her office will comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests when the suspect is charged with an egregious crime, such as capital murder, aggravated sexual assault, etc. Immigrants, whether unauthorized or not, are less likely to commit crimes than USA -born citizens. “His anti-immigrant hysteria damages local law enforcement and our entire community”.
If forcing local police to help enforce federal civil rules sounds fine with you, imagine if the president were a Democrat and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wanted help rounding up guns.
Supporters view the proposed law as a safety measure meant to make sure the state uniformly complies with federal immigration enforcement.
They feel the passage of Senate Bill 4 will lead to deportations, hate crimes and racial profiling that will in turn make the state less safe.
Several members of the Texas Senate’s GOP caucus lined up behind Sen.
State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin), told the San Antonio Express-News the cuts would hurt many. “We risk further endangering women and children who fall prey to violence and extortion such as human trafficking”, Lucio said.
The hearing went well into the night, as more than 500 people signed up to testify before the committee.
Abbott tweeted on January 31: “I’m declaring banning sanctuary cities in #Texas an emergency item”.
Last week, the Republican-controlled Texas Senate began pushing a ban on sanctuary cities in the state.
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On Tuesday, San Francisco, another sanctuary city, filed a lawsuit challenging a January 25 executive order by President Donald Trump directing the USA government to withhold money from cities that have adopted sanctuary policies toward illegal immigrants. It didn’t specify what kind of money could be pulled.
