The Texas Senate on Thursday approved a proposal that would create a homeland security division within the state’s Department of Public Safety to focus on immigration enforcement, organized crime and protecting the state’s infrastructure from security risks.
If passed into law, Senate Bill 36 would make Texas’ immigration enforcement efforts a permanent part of the state’s criminal justice system. SB 36, which passed in the Senate on a 26-4 vote, will now go before the state House of Representatives.
For the past four years, Texas legislators have plowed more than $11 billion into Operation Lone Star, Gov. Greg Abbott’s ongoing border crackdown that deployed state police and Texas National Guard along the state’s nearly 1,300 miles of border with Mexico.
