Texas 2019 - 86th Regular

Texas House Bill HR69 Compare Versions

Only one version of the bill is available at this time.

Old	New	Differences
1	1	86R2261 BPG-D
2	2	By: Walle H.R. No. 69
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4	4
5	5	R E S O L U T I O N
6	6	WHEREAS, On June 20, 2018, President Donald J. Trump signed
7	7	an executive order designed to quell mounting public outrage over
8	8	the family separation crisis at the U.S./Mexico border, but the
9	9	administration's Zero Tolerance Policy on immigration continues to
10	10	harm children; and
11	11	WHEREAS, The Zero Tolerance Policy was introduced in April
12	12	2018, when the U.S. attorney general directed federal prosecutors
13	13	along the southwestern border to criminally prosecute all
14	14	immigrants entering the country without authorization, regardless
15	15	of whether they were seeking asylum or refugee status; parents
16	16	apprehended at the border were arrested and jailed, while their
17	17	minor children, including babies and toddlers too young to talk,
18	18	were taken from them by the Border Patrol and eventually dispatched
19	19	to Department of Health and Human Services shelters, many of them
20	20	thousands of miles away; and
21	21	WHEREAS, Across the country and around the world, people
22	22	reacted with horror at images and news reports of distraught
23	23	children and grieving parents; medical professionals warned that
24	24	children could suffer lasting psychological trauma, and in a
25	25	Washington Post op-ed, former first lady Laura Bush decried the
26	26	Zero Tolerance Policy as "cruel" and "immoral"; after President
27	27	Trump issued his executive order halting the practice of family
28	28	separation, a federal court ordered the government to reunite
29	29	nearly 3,000 migrant children and their parents within 30 days, but
30	30	the process was greatly complicated by shoddy recordkeeping during
31	31	the hasty implementation of the Zero Tolerance Policy; more than
32	32	three months later, over 100 minors remained in federal custody;
33	33	and
34	34	WHEREAS, On September 27, 2018, the Department of Homeland
35	35	Security Office of Inspector General issued an initial report on
36	36	family separation issues under the Zero Tolerance Policy; it
37	37	revealed a chaotic interagency process that did not establish a
38	38	means to track the identity of preverbal children in government
39	39	custody; moreover, it found that at least 860 migrant children had
40	40	been left in austere Border Patrol holding cells for longer than the
41	41	legal limit of 72 hours; and
42	42	WHEREAS, Although the family separation measures ended,
43	43	older youths have continued to cross the border on their own in
44	44	search of a better life, and immigration policies still in place
45	45	have driven the overall number of unaccompanied minors in detention
46	46	to record levels; in September 2018, the New York Times reported
47	47	that the migrant youth population at federally contracted shelters
48	48	had more than quintupled in a year, to over 13,000, as unaccompanied
49	49	minors spend longer periods in custody; Department of Health and
50	50	Human Services data suggests that the rise is due to increasingly
51	51	stringent regulations and heightened fears of deportation, which
52	52	discourage relatives and family friends from coming forward as
53	53	sponsors for these children; as a result, shelters have hovered
54	54	near 90 percent capacity, and in early September, the
55	55	administration announced the tripling of its temporary "tent city"
56	56	for children in Tornillo; such shelters are far more costly than
57	57	traditional shelters, and they offer neither education nor mental
58	58	health services, nor are they regulated by state child welfare
59	59	authorities, as are permanent shelters; protracted stays in such
60	60	facilities risk deepening the trauma already suffered by these
61	61	youngsters; and
62	62	WHEREAS, The economic cost of expanded detention is not
63	63	inconsiderable; internal documents from the Department of Health
64	64	and Human Services reveal that more than $260 million has been
65	65	reallocated to the program, taking funding away from such essential
66	66	services as the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes
67	67	of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
68	68	another $200 million has been redirected within the Department of
69	69	Homeland Security to the aggressive immigration enforcement agenda
70	70	from FEMA, the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, the
71	71	U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
72	72	cybersecurity, the Transportation Security Administration, and
73	73	other departments; and
74	74	WHEREAS, While the crisis among migrant youths has unfolded,
75	75	the Trump administration has worked to circumvent long-standing
76	76	legal time limits on their detention; such constraints were imposed
77	77	by the court in the 1997 Flores Agreement, a consent decree stemming
78	78	from a class action lawsuit over the physical and emotional harm
79	79	suffered by children confined in jail-like settings; a judge
80	80	rejected the administration's request to suspend the Flores
81	81	Agreement in July 2018, but the administration is currently seeking
82	82	approval to withdraw from the consent decree and replace it with a
83	83	new agreement with looser restrictions; and
84	84	WHEREAS, The Zero Tolerance Policy has exacted a terrible
85	85	human toll and significant economic costs, causing hardship and
86	86	heartbreak while draining resources from agencies and programs that
87	87	protect Americans and improve their lives; now, therefore, be it
88	88	RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 86th Texas
89	89	Legislature hereby respectfully urge the president of the United
90	90	States to end the Zero Tolerance Policy in regards to immigration
91	91	and to uphold the important provisions of the Flores Agreement;
92	92	and, be it further
93	93	RESOLVED, That the chief clerk forward an official copy of
94	94	this resolution to the president as an expression of sentiment by
95	95	the Texas House of Representatives.