Lawmakers form border security working group
AUSTIN — The Texas House’s Mexican American Legislative Caucus formed a border security working group this week to get started on planning for the next regular session in 2009.
The Border Security Task Force is set to have a series of town-hall style meetings in cities along the Texas border with Mexico and across the state to solicit public input, said state Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, the task force’s leader. The task force then plans to develop recommendations about border security for the next Legislature.
Noriega also wants the group to keep an eye on how the state spends more than $100 million in border-security funds the Legislature approved during the recently ended session. Most of that money is slated to go to Gov. Rick Perry’s homeland security office.
Noriega had wanted the state homeland security chief to be subject to a Senate confirmation, but the idea did not take hold in the Legislature.
“This allows us to monitor those commitments by the state and those developments, the implementation of the use of those dollars, what the tangible results are for Texans,” Noriega said.
“We want to make sure, obviously, at the end of the day that Texans are safer.”
Senate Bill 11 created a Border Security Council, appointed by the governor, which will advise the governor on how to spend millions of dollars in homeland security funds. It does not include controversial immigration measures that were in previous versions of the bill and would have required cities and counties to enforce federal immigration laws.
State Rep. Juan M. Escobar, D-Kingsville, will help lead the Border Security Task Force.
Escobar said he thought Senate Bill 11 represented a good, bipartisan compromise, but the state can continue to make citizens safer.
“I believe we need to listen to the people and understand what their concerns are in order to come up with an effective legislation to proceed next session,” he said.
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Elizabeth Hernandez covers the state capital for Valley Freedom Newspapers. She is based in Austin and can be reached at (512) 323-0622.
