AUSTIN — Last Thursday, Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that would reimburse property owners for damage caused through the perpetration of “border crimes” committed by “trespassers.” His stamp of approval was accompanied by a $34 million slice of the state budget to help get the new program off the ground.
Under the new law, “border crimes” is defined broadly as drug-related crimes, evading arrest or detention, and the smuggling or trafficking of persons.
The bill puts administration of the program in the hands of the state attorney general, who will set guidelines for grant recipients and to decide which requests to approve — a crucial criteria for successful applicants is documentation by law enforcement to prove the damage was immigration-related. The maximum amount of money awarded to individual recipients is $75,000.
The bill, SB 1133, was sponsored by César Blanco, the Big Bend’s representative in the Senate. He said it was written in response to concerns from his constituents. “I’ve visited with many landowners and farmers and have heard many stories over the last two years about how their private property has been impacted by increased bailouts in relation to trafficking and smuggling activity at the border,” he wrote to The Big Bend Sentinel.
Blanco detailed the most common causes of property damage from immigration-related crimes: broken water lines and empty stock tanks, fences being run over or cut, cattle eating trash left over from makeshift camps. Landowners had also reported fires being set — both intentionally and unintentionally — that claimed structures and grassland and strained rural emergency personnel.
Representatives from the South Texas Property Rights Association (STPRA) made their way to Austin to testify before the legislature in support of the bill. The organization — a 501c3 nonprofit — was formed in 2006, in large part to organize landowners affected by immigration-related crime.
Susan Kibbe, executive director of the STPRA, said that migration doesn’t just affect property owners in South Texas — the entire country is impacted by the shifting landscape of immigration policy and organized crime. “The cartel is pushing groups [of migrants] forward, and they’re involved with all sorts of virtually-integrated business that includes drug trafficking and sex trafficking,” she said. “It’s just something that’s got to be stopped.”
Kibbe believed the bill was a positive step toward protecting affected landowners but felt that it was only treating a symptom of a wider problem.
She wanted to see true immigration reform that would benefit both migrants and ranchers, like the implementation of an improved guest worker program. She felt that a revamped system would incentivize folks who would otherwise enter the country illegally to instead work seasonal jobs. “In a perfect world, that would make a whole lot of difference,” she said.
On the local level, Jeff Davis County Judge Curtis Evans was pleased to see bipartisan support for the bill. He felt that it wasn’t Texas politicians who were failing to come together across the aisle to brainstorm solutions — it was the federal government, which has constitutionally-mandated power to enforce immigration law. “It’s not the state’s responsibility to protect our borders — it’s the job of the federal government,” he said. “[Reform] keeps getting sidelined by people who don’t understand the situation.”
Evans still maintained that the passage of the bill was a step in the right direction. “Our ranchers — they’re in desperate need of all kinds of help,” he said.
