Honorable Brian Birdwell, Chair, Senate Committee on Border Security
FROM:
Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB4 by Spiller (relating to the creation of the criminal offense of improper entry from a foreign nation and indemnification of certain claims relating to the enforcement of that offense.), Committee Report 2nd House, Substituted
The bill would create the Class B misdemeanor offense of improper entry from a foreign nation. The penalty would be increased ranging from a state jail felony to a first degree felony in cases with certain previous convictions. The bill would require a law enforcement officer of the Department of Public Safety who arrests a person for such an offense, to the extent feasible, to detain the person in a facility established under Operation Lone Star or a similar border security operation of this state. The bill would make a defendant charged with or convicted of such an offense ineligible for community supervision and would make an inmate serving a sentence for such an offense ineligible for mandatory supervision or parole.
Creating a new criminal offense may result in additional demands upon state and local correctional resources due to a possible increase in the number of individuals sentenced to a term of confinement.
According to the information reported by the Department of Public Safety (DPS) pursuant to Article IX, Section 7.10 of the GAA and Section 9 of House Bill 9, Eighty-seventh Legislature, Second Called Session, DPS reported 63,707 detentions and referrals to federal authorities in border regions during fiscal year 2022. It is unknown if any of these cases included conduct outlined in the bill's provisions.
The impact on state correctional populations or on the demand for state correctional resources cannot be determined due to a lack of data to estimate the prevalence of conduct outlined in the bill's provisions that would be subject to criminal penalties.