BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Research Center H.C.R. 125
80R5889 JRB-D By: Martinez, "Mando", Guillen (Lucio)
Transportation & Homeland Security
AUTHOR'S / SPONSOR'S STATEMENT OF INTENT
In 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act created the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. For more than a decade, the COPS initiative has awarded more than $11 billion to over 13,000 agencies across the country. Among the initiatives established under the COPS program are the universal hiring program, which resulted in the hiring or redeployment of more than 118,000 law enforcement officers in over 12,000 enforcement agencies nationwide, and numerous training initiatives that have helped deliver classes on topics ranging from ethics to terrorism to more than 340,000 officers. In offering grants to implement innovative programs such as these, COPS has played a significant role in reducing the crime rate in many areas of the country.
In the last six years, however, the COPS program has suffered numerous cuts in funding, threatening to reverse the improvements in law enforcement credited to the program at a time when national security is a concern at all levels of government. This has happened specifically along the Texas-Mexico border, where Texas law officers are consistently understaffed, underpaid, and overworked. Additionally, the recently filed Prosperous and Secure Neighbor Alliance Act would, if enacted, allocate $170 million to the United Mexican States to professionalize the Mexican police force for patrols along the U.S.-Mexico border. This allocation of money would further jeopardize the efforts of state and local law enforcement agencies that depend on continued funding through the COPS program.
While the United States must rely on neighboring nations to do their part to maintain border security, it is equally crucial that programs such as COPS continue to receive the funding necessary to provide adequate resources to safeguard our borders and achieve a level of security expected by the American people. Unfortunately, sending funds to Mexico and simultaneously reducing federal assistance locally substantially imperils this worthy goal.
RESOLVED
That the 80th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby respectfully urges the Congress of the United States to restore full funding to the COPS program to assist Texas law enforcement in patrolling the border before authorizing funding for the police force of the United Mexican States, and that the Texas secretary of state forward official copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.