Texas Governor Seeks Stiffer Penalties for Human Smuggling

AUSTIN, Texas — Governor Greg Abbott asked the Legislature to increase penalties for those convicted of human smuggling incidents. The state has seen a spike in attempts as criminal organizations expand their use of social media to recruit smugglers, Abbott told Breitbart Texas.

“To me, this is shocking,” Abbott began in the interview. “Texans are going on to Twitter or Tik Tok or whatever the case may be, and seeing advertisements by the cartels offered to pay them money to pick up illegal immigrants and transport them elsewhere in the state of Texas.”

“And that’s a crime,” the governor continued. “But either it’s not being enforced or the punishment is not serious enough. So I want to mandatory ten years behind bars for anyone who is caught smuggling somebody in Texas.”

An illustration of this is the arrest of a Houston man in Kenny County who was recently arrested by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers for allegedly smuggling eight migrants, including a child from Mexico, according to a tweet from DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez.

The driver admitted to the trooper that the smuggling coordinator recruited him via WhatsApp and allegedly paid him $30,000 to transport the eight migrants to Houston.

In a separate incident in Kinney County, DPS special agents arrested two suspected human smugglers with eight migrants from Mexico hiding in the bed of a pickup truck, Olivarez tweeted. The two suspects from San Antonio were in possession of a handgun and an AR-15 rifle.

During his recent State-of-the-State address, Governor Abbott made securing the border an emergency item. The designation allows the Texas Legislature to prioritize bills related to this and pass them more quickly. The governor asked the legislature to create a ten-year-minimum sentence for anyone caught smuggling in Texas. He also asked the Legislature to enhance the penalty for operating stash houses to a third-degree felony.

Finally, if human smuggling or stash house operations occur in an area under a disaster declaration, the governor asked for enhanced penalties.