Texas lawmakers debate bills to curb illegal immigration

AUSTIN (Nexstar) – Inside a climate-controlled storage unit just outside Houston is an almost identical layout of Jocelyn Nungaray’s childhood room. 

Her mom, Alexis, points out all the small details she took into account when recreating her daughter’s room, including how she hung the movie and video game posters that adorned her wall. 

“Some of them are crooked because she had them crooked, but she thought they were straight and she thought they were fine,” Nungaray said with a smile. 

Nungaray visits this room weekly. She says it’s good to be surrounded by the memories of her daughter and her belongings, some of which still carry her scent. 

“It just makes me feel like she's still alive,” Nungaray said. 

Jocelyn was killed last June. Houston police say they found her body in shallow water underneath a bridge within walking distance of her home. Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Pena, two Venezuelan nationals, are charged with sexual assault and murder. Her death shocked the local community, but its impact was far-reaching. 

Kim Ogg, the Harris County District Attorney, announced in December she is seeking the death penalty against the accused. 

Federal immigration authorities say the two men were in the country illegally at the time of the murder. Jocelyn’s story gained traction across the country in the midst of a presidential election as Republicans ridiculed President Joe Biden’s border policies. It’s also inspired bills working their way through the Texas legislature. 

"She said it, whether she was famous or not, ‘everyone's going to know my name. I promise you, everyone's going to know my name,’” Nungaray said. Since her daughter’s death, she said she has devoted her life to advocating for Jocelyn. 

Three months after Joceyln died, Alexis traveled to Washington D.C. to provide testimony in front of the House Committee on the Judiciary. In her testimony, Nungaray said the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies were responsible for Jocelyn’s death. 

“The program the two illegal immigrants were enrolled in failed my daughter, Jocelyn. I’m here to use my voice and raise awareness of how broken our country has become with our open border policies,” Nungaray said in her testimony. “As a U.S citizen, it shouldn’t be a privilege to have safety in this country. It should be a requirement.”

What is Jocelyn’s Law?

Her advocacy effort has garnered support from Gov. Greg Abbott, who highlighted Jocelyn at his State of the State address in February. He became emotional talking about Jocelyn, saying, “Justice for Jocelyn demands action. I demand legislation.” 

At the state level, Nungaray is advocating for SJR 1, a constitutional amendment that would deny bail to any person in the country illegally who is arrested and charged with a felony. It is called Jocelyn’s Law.

"I truly believe if they didn't want to be held with no bail, no bond, they should not have committed such heinous crimes in the first place,” Nungaray said. 

It is part of a larger push for bail reform at the State Capitol this session. Nungaray provided testimony to the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice. The bill gained bipartisan support in the Texas Senate, passing out of the higher chamber in a 28-2 vote. 

“No family should have to go through what Jocelyn’s family and others have endured,” wrote Senators Carol Alvarado, D-Houston; Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio; and José Menéndez, D-San Antonio.  “SJR 1, which seeks to address serious public safety issues stemming from judges who are not following current state laws on bail, is a first step to ensuring dangerous offenders are not released.”

However, while that group of Democratic senators supported the bill, they said they still have concerns, issuing a statement into the Senate journal following the vote to express them. 

The senators said they believed the way SJR 1 was written at the time will be found unconstitutional, violating the 5th and 14th amendments. The group also hopes to change the language so it narrows the focus to violent types of crime. 

“As drafted, the current language applies to ALL state jail, first, second and third degree felony offenses, making it more difficult for judges to prioritize cases involving violent offenses,” the group wrote.

The senators also worry 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.” 

Their final concern deals with the Laken Riley Act, which the United States Congress passed earlier this year. It requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain anyone in the country who is unauthorized and accused of committing a crime like burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting.

“We must make sure that we are not shifting the cost of detention from the federal government to local taxpayers since counties are responsible for housing defendants pre-trial,” the group of senators argued. 

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.”

Critics of measures that factor citizenship into the criminal justice system point to studies that show undocumented immigrants have a lower arrest rate than U.S. citizens. A study from the National Institute of Justice – the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice – analyzed data from the Texas Department of Public Safety and found “undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes” in the state.

Jocelyn’s law would need to garner 100 votes to pass out of the Texas House since it is a constitutional amendment. In late April, Gov. Greg Abbott made multiple appearances across the state to advocate for the measure.

“Judges in Texas, they have to decide,” Abbott said to a coalition of sheriffs who operate on or near the U.S. border. “Will they enforce the laws to protect the citizens they serve? Or make it easy on the criminals who kill them? I think the answer is clear. I think if sheriffs get behind us across Texas, it’ll be an easy one to get across the finish line this session.”

The next day in Houston, Abbott acknowledged the political reality behind the proposed amendment.

“I’ll’ be honest with you – straight forward, there are 88 Republicans in the Texas House who I know will support this proposal, and to get it passed, [it] would need 12 Democrats in the Texas House to agree to this,” he said. “So it’s just a matter of gaining the support of 12 Democrats.”

However, getting the votes in the Texas House is not the last step. Texas voters would have to make the final decision at the ballot in November. 

Lawmakers file bills targeting southern border

Over the past four years, the state of Texas has spent more than $11 billion to, as Republican lawmakers say, curb illegal immigration as well as stop human trafficking and the flow of drugs coming up through the southern border. 

President Trump promised to close the border and has even sent US troops down to the southern border. The number of encounters at the southern border have gone down: enforcement encounters were 11,017 this past March, a drastic drop from a year ago when encounters were 189,359 in March 2024. 

But even with the drop in numbers, this year’s state budget shows another $6 billion allocated for Operation Lone Star, Abbott’s mission to respond to the southern border that started during the Biden Administration.  

E-Verify

Lawmakers also introduced bills this session to require more companies to use E-Verify when hiring. E-Verify is a federal system to help employers verify an applicant is eligible to work in the United States. Under current law, only state agencies, higher education and sexually oriented businesses are required to use E-Verify services. 

Senate Bill 324, authored by State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, would require both public and private employers to use the E-Verify system. The bill passed mostly down party lines 19-12, with state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, being the lone “no” Republican vote. 

The bill does have a companion bill in the House but that has not yet been given a hearing date in the State Affairs committee. 

Border wall

Texas is in the process of building its own state-funded border wall. The Texas Facilities Commission is responsible for carrying out the initiative. In April, the TFC reported it has completed 61.8 miles of border wall construction. 

The initiative has $2.5 billion of funding and the TFC director, Mike Novak, said the agency is ready to build about 85 miles of wall by summer 2026. The state has faced issues approaching landowners to lease parts of their land for the construction, according to the Texas Tribune.  

A few bills in the legislature look to help the TFC acquire more easement agreements. 

House Bill 247, by state Rep. Ryan Guillen, R-Rio Grande City, would give a property owner a tax break if they allow state or federal border barriers to be built on their property. Guillen said installing border security infrastructure on private land could create an unfair burden on landowners because it would increase their property value.

It passed out of committee with a majority of support, 11-1.  

Another proposal, SB 316 by state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, would allow the TFC to use eminent domain to acquire land for the construction of the border wall. That bill has been referred to the committee on Border Security, but has not been scheduled for a hearing. 

Texans will ultimately decide 

True to what she told her mother, Jocelyn’s name is becoming well-known. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge to the Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge in honor of her memory and because she loved wildlife. 

Texas senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn filed legislation in the U.S. Capitol to codify the President’s executive order. It would permanently change the name of the refuge about an hour east of Houston.  

But the connection of her name to Texas legislation has also brought some backlash. Alexis said her daughter’s memorial, staged along the outer fencing of a skate park and right next to where her body was found, has been defaced.

Nungaray, who is Latina, said she has faced criticism from the Latino community for her advocacy of the bill. She recalled a trip to Hobby Lobby where a store employee recognized her. Nungaray said the woman told her she was from Venezuela and apologized for what had happened to her daughter, but did say “we’re not all like that.” 

Nungaray said the woman told her she is worried she could face deportation as President Donald Trump cracks down on the southern border and has promised to deport “migrant criminals.” But Nungaray said she stands by her beliefs that anyone who entered the country illegally has already broken the law and does not deserve to be in the country. 

“I would assume and think you would want to stay under the radar, to stay in a place you chose to come to. But when you put a target on your back by targeting innocent people and doing things with ill will intent, there's no excuse for that,” Nungaray said.

If Joelyn’s Law is to become actual law in Texas one day, it will be up to the voters of the state to make the ultimate decision. Polling has shown immigration and border security are a top priority for Texas voters. The Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin conducted a poll this past April asking Texans an open-ended question: What do you think should be the legislature’s top priority? 

It was a tie for first, with 15% of respondents saying immigration and border security and another 15% saying the economy and prices of goods.

KXAN Graphic Artist Wendy Gonzalez, Director of Investigations & Innovation Josh Hinkle, Investigative Photojournalist Chris Nelson, Digital Special Projects Developer Robert Sims and Digital Director Kate Winkle contributed to this report.