AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Senate Joint Resolution 1 — a proposed constitutional amendment to prevent bail for those not lawfully in the country accused of certain crimes — fell 13 votes shy of the 100 votes needed to pass the Texas House.
Known as ‘Jocelyn’s Law’, after 12-year-old Houston girl Jocelyn Nungaray was allegedly killed by a pair of men illegally in the country last year, SJR 1 was a priority of Gov. Greg Abbott.
“Illegal immigrants who are arrested should be considered a flight risk, denied bail and turned over to [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)],” Abbott said during his state of the state address in early February.
Opponents of the bill argued that the bill would lead to racial profiling in minority communities. State Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., D-Fort Worth, spoke about the impact he believed it would have on his community.
“A young man may get pulled or may get stopped just simply for jogging and not carrying his ID, and I can say that it offends me because this has happened to my own son,” Romero said.
State Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, who sponsored the Senate bill, said the intentions of the bill were not coming from hatred or prejudice, but rather was going after criminals.
“Rapists, murderers, human traffickers, drug dealers, child molesters. Are these the type of people we want to vote to protect?,” Smithee asked his colleagues from the front of the chamber floor.
While the Texas legislature has passed tangential laws designed to uphold Abbott’s vision, such as Senate Bill 8 which requires local law enforcement agencies to partner with ICE on their 287(g) detention program.
Nexstar reached out to the Governor’s office to ask what his thoughts were on a potential special session if Jocelyn’s Law did not pass. A spokesperson in the office said in a statement, “Governor Abbott made bail reform a top priority this session and has delivered on that promise. The Texas Legislature has passed the strongest bail reform package in Texas history to ensure the most violent criminals are kept behind bars and our streets are safe. The Governor looks forward to enacting this package and sending to voters for their approval.”
Earlier this month the Texas House did pass another bail reform measure — SJR 5 — which would give judges and magistrates the discretion to deny pail to a person charged with a violent crime if the judge deems they pose a safety risk to the public. The constitutional amendment would have to be approved by a majority of voters in the November ballot.
SJR 1 took nearly three months to reach a House floor vote on May 19, passing to a third reading with an 88-50 vote. However, that’s not enough for constitutional amendments which require a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of the legislature and a majority vote from the public.
After failing to get the required 100 votes, SJR 1 was postponed. And postponed again. In total, it’s been postponed seven times before Wednesday. It passed the Senate 28-2 all the way back on Feb. 19, but Senate Democrats had reservations about the bill.
The senators worried about how broad the language is concerning the definition of “illegal alien.” As it is written, Jocelyn’s Law defines an illegal alien as anyone who entered the United States without inspection, or anyone who entered the country as a nonimmigrant and failed to maintain that status before they are accused of a crime. A nonimmigrant can be any foreign person allowed to enter the country for a certain amount of time and for a certain purpose, such as a student visa.
The senators argue the language should be refined to “ensure that those who may have initially entered the country without authorization but have since gone through the appropriate legal processes to gain lawful status are not impacted by this legislation.”
What SJR 1 would do
SJR 1 is modeled off of the United States Congress’ Laken Riley Act. It requires judges to deny bail for those defined as ‘illegal aliens’ if they’re accused of committing one of these crimes:
- First-degree felony criminal solicitation
- Murder
- Capital murder
- Aggravated kidnapping
- Trafficking of persons
- Continuous trafficking of persons
- Indecency with a child
- Sexual assualt
- Aggravated sexual assault
- Felony injury to a child
- Aggravated robbery
- First-degree felony burglary with intent to:
- Continuous sexual abuse of a young child or disabled individual
- Indecency with a child
- Sexual assualt
- Aggravated sexual assault
- Prohibited sexual conduct
- Aggravated promotion of prostitution
- Compelling prostitution
- Possession or promotion of child pornography
- A felony where:
- A deadly weapon was used or brandished
- The accused was a party to the felony where a deadly weapon was used or brandished
- A felony under the election code
- An offense involving the manufacturing or delivery of a controlled substance with intent to delivery
- An offense involving the manufacturing, delivery or possession of a controlled substance in a drug-free zone, if the accused had already been convicted of committing a similar crime
A judge or magistrate must deny bail if they determine there is probable cause the person engaged in the accused crime at a hearing.
Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch is an immigration attorney and has been following SJR 1. She is concerned that local criminal courts will have to make decisions on someone’s immigration status, a job she feels is better adjudicated in a federal court.
“Those are two independent systems and they should be independent because immigration is complicated and it’s federal law,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “I’ve represented people who’ve been accused of being terrorists just because they have tattoos. I’ve seen firsthand the way detention can be politicized. I, personally, do not trust the fact that that would not happen at the state level.”
The House and Senate must pass all bills on third reading by midnight on Wednesday. Any bills not passed are considered “dead.”
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