Texas sanctuary cities bill worries border community leaders

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EL PASO – Lawmakers from this border community are concerned about the harm that would result if Texas begins requiring law enforcement and other agencies to act as immigration agents. The Texas Senate on Feb. 9 passed SB4, which Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, called “a thinly disguised attack on immigrant communities.”

The so-called “anti-sanctuary cities” bill would allow the state to penalize cities over policies that obstruct enforcement of immigration law or discourage police agencies from inquiring about a person’s immigration status. The Texas House is now considering its version of the bill. The senator says he, along with other opponents of the bill, offered amendments to decrease the negative impacts the passage of bill would have on health, safety and social life of communities.

Website to track border deaths by law enforcement officers wins startup grant

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Washington, D.C. – A Spanish-language website and database to document incidents of undocumented immigrants killed by law enforcement on the southern border of the U.S. is among four media startups to receive a $12,000 grant from J-Lab. EncuentrosMortales.org is the idea of D. Brian Burghart, editor and publisher of the Reno News & Review, who created FatalEncounters.org, a crowd-sourced database attempting to track police use of deadly force in the United States. EncuentrosMortales.org will collect public records and media reports of undocumented people killed during interactions with law enforcement officers. “I’m very excited to be able to move forward with EncuentrosMortales.org. Law-enforcement-involved homicides along the U.S. border is an important and underreported issue, and I hope we can bring together technology, languages and volunteers to get a much better idea of our government’s activities,” he said.

Guns on campus – What’s your stand?

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EL PASO – The Texas Legislature is considering allowing students and professors with concealed handgun licenses to carry their firearms on college campuses.  The bill in draft form has been approved by committee and is headed to the Texas House for a vote, where a majority favors the measure

In 2009 a similar bill failed in the Texas State Legislature. This year though, gun control advocates say that it will be more difficult to stop this bill. If passed and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry as expected, Texas would become the second state after Utah to approve this type of legislation. The topic of firearms on campuses is of growing concern for everyone possibly affected, whether students, parents of a student, faculty and staff at a college or university or members of the police forces responsible for the safety and security of everyone on campus. Students and faculty members here at the University of Texas at El Paso expressed the following opinions and concerns:

“I don’t agree with it,” said Evi Marquez, a student, “because I think it would be another threat especially with the war going on across the border with the drugs and everything and you know its been said that people come and use the cars here at UTEP as a loading zone for the drugs and as far as for bringing weapons into that it would be so much more dangerous that you never know what could happen.