Texas Tribune (Texas)
By Julian Aguilar
June 1, 2015
As the sun begins to set on the 84th Texas Legislature, promises to enact tough immigration legislation remain unfulfilled. State Sen.
Donna Campbell
says she’s not giving up just because the last gavel is about to drop.
Campbell,
a New Braunfels Republican, tried unsuccessfully to pass Senate Bill
1819, which would have eliminated a 14-year-old policy that allows
non-citizens, including
some undocumented immigrants, to pay in-state tuition rates at public
colleges and universities.
“Unfortunately,
it takes a [three-fifths] vote to bring a bill to the floor, and I was
unable to find those final two to three affirmative votes once the bill
passed out
of committee,” she said in an email Saturday. “I am disappointed that
we were unable to get this bill passed under the current body, but I
have two years to change a couple members' minds and try again next
session."
Republican lawmakers could take a similar conciliatory tone on another contentious issue, Senate Bill 185, by state Sen.
Charles Perry,
R-Lubbock. That bill sought to ban so-called “sanctuary cities” – the
common term for local governments whose peace officers don’t enforce
immigration laws.
The
proposals seemed likely to pass, at minimum, the upper chamber in the
early months of the session. The crush of unauthorized migration last
summer in the Rio Grande
Valley kept the issues at the forefront, and some GOP senators said
during their campaigns that passing immigration legislation was a
priority.
But two Republican senators,
Kevin Eltife,
R-Tyler, and Craig Estes,
R-Wichita Falls, opposed the measures.
Eltife said the issues were about local control; Estes said he feared
both could have dire unintended consequences. Their opposition blocked
both from going before the full chamber for a vote.
State Sen.
Kirk Watson,
D-Austin, said a coalition opposing the bills formed early, and it held
“regardless of a great deal of pressure that was put on some people.”
[…] When then-Gov.
Rick Perry
declared
eliminating sanctuary cities an emergency item in 2011, the business
community and some conservative groups worked behind the scenes to stop
the legislation. Watson said
this year saw a repeat of those actions.
[…]
Immigrant rights groups are also sharing the credit for stopping the
measures. They cite public testimony, which at times lasted until the
early-morning hours during
committee hearings, as a possible game-changer this session.
The
House steered away from the issues all session, and lawmakers in the
lower chamber said they would not amend border security bills with
immigration legislation. What
could have been the final vehicle for the "sanctuary cities" bill,
House Bill 11, a broad-based border security bill by state Rep.
Dennis Bonnen,
R-Angleton, was sent
to Gov. Greg Abbott's desk late last week.
[…]
The conservative grassroots is also likely to continue hounding
lawmakers after the session. Several Tea Party groups released a
statement as key deadlines approached
in May warning lawmakers that they wouldn’t settle for excuses about
“running out of time” on several issues, including
immigration-enforcement legislation.
“It’s
beginning to look as if some of those campaign promises are ‘all hat
and no cattle,’” JoAnn Fleming, the executive director of
Grassroots America,
a conservative
East Texas group, said in a statement. “With the condition our country
is in, we’re in no mood for any stalling, slow walking, or backtracking
from Texas leaders.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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