How State Lawmakers are Trying to Crack Down on Illegal Immigration
By Alejandro Serrano and Uriel J. García, The Texas Tribune
As the Trump administration undertakes delivering on the president’s promised mass deportations, Texas lawmakers are contemplating a number of proposed bills that could help the federal government’s efforts and expand the state’s own border crackdown.
Legislators filed dozens of bills that target undocumented immigrants, expand the state’s role in immigration enforcement and test novel ideas, like administering rapid DNA testing at the border to confirm familiar relationships.
But as the Legislature enters its final month of regular session, many proposals have stalled in committee, if they were referred at all, while some key bills identified as priorities by state leaders appear to be on track to becoming law.
Lawmakers seem poised to require certain local law enforcement agencies to work with federal immigration authorities and create a homeland security division within the state’s Department of Public Safety to streamline the state’s border security operations.
Here is what you need to know:
Forcing 287(g) partnerships
Perhaps no proposal is closer to becoming law than one that would require sheriffs in counties with more than 100,000 residents to enter into agreements with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement.
Senate Bill 8, filed by Republican Sens. Joan Huffman of Houston and Charles Schwertner of Georgetown, would mandate that sheriffs in larger counties request partnerships known as 287(g) agreements from ICE.
Under a 1996 federal immigration law, ICE can authorize local authorities to carry out certain types of immigration enforcement in local jails — where officers can be deputized to question inmates about their immigration status and to serve administrative warrants — and in the field, where officers can be permitted to question people about their immigration status through a model the Trump administration has revived after it fell into disuse following allegations that it led to racial profiling.
The upper chamber in April sent SB 8 to the House, which has a companion piece of legislation that has been making its way through the legislative process.
Such programs serve as “force multipliers” for ICE, an agency of about 6,000 officers with limited resources, according to the federal agency, immigration lawyers and policing experts.
As of early May, 15 law enforcement agencies in Texas — including the state National Guard and the Attorney General’s office — had already inked agreements to participate in the resurrected “task force model” with ICE that grants officers the authority to conduct immigration enforcement duties while out in the field.
Offsetting the costs of immigration
Lawmakers are also looking at ways to study the costs of illegal immigration.
State Sen. Mayes Middleton’s Senate Bill 825 would task the governor’s office with conducting a biannual study of the economic, environmental and financial effects of illegal immigration on the state — but solely focus on the costs.
The last time the state conducted a similar study almost two decades ago, then-state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Republican, found that undocumented Texans contributed more to the state’s economy than they cost the state.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ryan Guillen, a Republican from Rio Grande City, has proposed expanding a fund the state established in 2023 to reimburse homeowners in border counties whose property has been damaged by border crime — which can include everything from migrants cutting fences while passing through their land to damage from high-speed police pursuits of suspected migrants and smugglers that end in a crash.
House Bill 246 would expand the potential sources of revenue for the fund so the attorney general’s office, which administers it, could accept donations, gifts and other revenue designated by the Legislature, which appropriated $18 million in state money for the fund over the 2023-24 biennium.
The bill was heard in committee but has not yet advanced to the full House floor.
Identifying undocumented immigrants
Lawmakers also have introduced bills that would require companies to use E-Verify — a federal government website that helps businesses determine whether an immigrant is legally allowed to work in the U.S.
Senators this week advanced one such proposal, Senate Bill 324, filed by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham. Democratic senators unsuccessfully tried to tack on amendments that would have ensured people with any sort of legal status would not be affected by the bill should there be any changes implemented by the Trump administration that affect their status or ability to work, as well as another to add a delay period to the requirement aimed at offsetting potential impacts on the state economy.
Kolkhorst, the author, thanked her colleagues for the conversations but said that she hopes the passage of the bill itself would signal to lawmakers and federal officials in Washington D.C. that Texas is serious about hiring legal workers — and inspire them to address worker shortages with solutions like a guest worker program.
The state for years has expanded E-Verify requirements, but typically has not punished businesses that hire undocumented workers. The Pew Research Center estimates that unauthorized immigrants make up approximately 8% of the state’s workforce, including a large presence in the hospitality, restaurant, energy and construction industries.
Border wall: tax breaks and eminent domain
For the past four years, the state has approached border landowners seeking permission to build barriers along the 1,200-mile-long Texas-Mexico border. But the state has faced a challenge in finding enough willing landowners to lease part of their land to the state.
House Bill 247, introduced by state Rep. Ryan Guillen, R-Rio Grande City, would give a property tax break to landowners who have allowed state or federal border barriers to be built on their property.
The proposal says the state tax break would be available to any landowners who allow the state or the federal government to install “a wall, barrier, fence, wire, road trench, technology” or any type of infrastructure “to surveil or impede the movement of persons or objects crossing the Texas-Mexico border.”
A House committee heard testimony on the bill in April but it has not yet advanced to the full chamber.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/12/texas-legislature-immigration-bills/.
