AUSTIN, Texas -- Today, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa released the following statement on Texas Republicans’ filing of H.B. 20, a bill to create a new “Show Me Your Papers” state police force across the majority-Latino region of South Texas to harass and attempt to detain any individual they suspect of being undocumented: 

“Born to Mexican parents, I have been an American citizen my entire life, born minutes from the U.S.-Mexico border. Under this law, one of this bill’s newly-created police agents could pull me over and demand proof of my citizenship – simply for my ‘crime’ of looking Hispanic. 

“H.B. 20 is an egregious assault on our basic civil liberties and our core values as a nation of immigrants. 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. 

“This heinous bill, if passed, would do nothing to curb the crisis at our border – it would merely subject South Texans to constant state-mandated racial profiling and a level of big-brother police-state dystopia they could have never even imagined.”

“Once Republicans are ready to put aside political theatrics, we as Democrats are prepared to work hand-in-hand with our Republican colleagues at the local, state, and federal level to redesign our immigration system into one that is fair, orderly, and humane – and give much-needed relief to South Texas border communities like where I live in Brownsville. This bigoted, authoritarian monstrosity of a bill – filed by a politician who lives 500 miles from the border – is not the answer. We as Texas Democrats will organize and fight against this bill with all of our collective strength.”

INFORMATION ABOUT H.B. 20

Texas Republicans’ new H.B. 20 would create a state border police force, named the “Border Protection Unit (BPU),” empowered to charge any undocumented migrant crossing onto private land with a third-degree felony for trespassing. 

BPU agents would be able to roam South Texas to harass and attempt to detain any individual they suspect of being undocumented while also costing the state likely millions of dollars in jail costs.

• H.B. 20, if passed, would in effect be Texas’s own version of Arizona’s unconstitutional S.B. 1070, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in its near entirety in 2012.

• According to University of Georgia Professor Cesar Escalante, who researched the impacts of S.B. 1070, “[Arizona] S.B. 1070 had significant mental health repercussions on Hispanic adolescents, including Hispanic adolescents who are legal residents.”

• Arizona Public Media also reported in 2020 that, “...in the wake of S.B. 1070, Latino adolescents in Arizona were more than five percentage points more likely to consider suicide than their white peers or Latinos in other states. They were also more likely to feel sad and avoid physical activity.”

• BPU officers would have incredibly broad jurisdiction, being able to carry out their “Show Me Your Papers” actions in any county in Texas. The legislation also affords BPU officers a high level of immunity from criminal and civil liability.

• H.B. 20 would allow for BPU officers to return undocumented migrants to Mexico if they witnessed the migrants crossing outside of a port-of-entry. (This is clearly unconstitutional as it violates Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the federal government jurisdiction over immigration enforcement).

• The bill also allows the BPU to “use force to repel, arrest, and detain known transnational cartel operatives in the border region” but does not describe how the BPU would know who is a “known transnational cartel operative,” again creating an avenue for “Show Me Your Papers”-style enforcement.

• Finally, this bill would charge a third-degree felony for trespassing into Texas private property from another jurisdiction – which would make it nearly impossible for undocumented migrants attempting to seek asylum through a mistaken avenue to ever achieve legal immigration status. 

Texas Democrats support President Biden’s comprehensive immigration package, which he sent to Congress immediately upon entering office, and which Republicans refuse to negotiate on in good faith. Additionally, we support the new federal efforts at the southern border that have already resulted in a dramatic 37% decrease in border crossings. 

Texas Democrats urge all Texans to contact their legislators and demand opposition to the unconstitutional, anti-immigrant H.B. 20.

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