TESTIMONY BEFORE

TEXAS SENATE COMMITTEE ON STATE AFFAIRS

RELATING TO S.B. 4

February 2, 2017

VERONICA ESCOBAR
EL PASO COUNTY JUDGE

El Paso County Courthouse

500 E. San Antonio, Suite 301
El Paso, Texas 79901
Phone: (915) 546-2098
Fax: (915) 543-3388
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Testimony of El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar

Before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs

February 2, 2017
Good afternoon.

Thank you, Chair Huffman, Vice Chair Hughes and honorable members of the State Affairs
Committee. My name is Veronica Escobar. I am the County Judge of El Paso, Texas, a community
right on the U.S.-Mexico Border, and one of the safest cities in the nation for over a decade.

I am here to testify on behalf of the voters of El Paso who should rightfully determine their own
destiny and the governance over the community they live and pay taxes in.

There is a fundamental problem with Senate Bill 4: it usurps the will of local voters who go to the
ballot box to determine the kind of community they want to live in.

Voters in our counties elect their sheriffs, their commissioners courts, their school boards, their city
councils and the officials who serve at their pleasure on a number of other governing bodies.

Those of us who are incumbents run on our records. Our challengers get to point out issues they
believe the electorate should consider when deciding whether or not to re-elect us. One of those key
issues for any community is safety. And I can tell you, because of the myths and misinformation
constantly spread about the U.S. Mexico Border mostly by politicians who have never bothered set
foot on the Border or talk to those of us who govern there we who live and work and pay taxes on
the Border are very sensitive to this "safety" issue.

If we at any point became an unsafe community, or if we felt our ranking as one of safest cities in
America were in serious jeopardy, our voters wouldn't hesitate to throw us out of office.

But when you dictate policy on how our local law enforcement officials should operate when this
policy comes from the Texas Capitol instead of from the policy makers they elect at home you are
telling our voters that their votes don't matter.

Furthermore, when public policy you craft here in Austin 500 miles away from El Paso policy that
creates a situation that my Sheriff says will make us less safe, you make it impossible for my voters to
hold anyone accountable for the erosion of the safety we have enjoyed for over a decade.

When my community becomes less safe because of racial profiling or because the immigrant
community is afraid to report crimes or collaborate with law enforcement for fear of deportation, who
will my voters get to throw out of office? Not you the legislators who voted to bypass their elections
and who jeopardized the very thing that makes those of us in El Paso sleep comfortably at night.

Honorable committee members, aside from the very troubling lack of accountability in this bill, there
is also a very real economic reality attached to it. You are increasing the taxes that my local property
taxpayers are going to have to pay.
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Testimony of El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar
Before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs
February 2, 2017

In addition to forcing the jail to adhere to new standards standards that will change the booking
process and that will require infrastructure changes as well as added personnel you are also telling
us that we have to hold prisoners in our local jails for as long as Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) wants us to. And we cannot protest. You are telling my taxpayers that they just
have to pay the tab.

At the El Paso downtown detention facility, taxpayers pay $100 per bed per day to house our state
and local prisoners. The state still is not paying its fair share for this, by the way, forcing local
taxpayers to foot the bill for your delays in picking up your prisoners even after they are paper ready.
But now you're saying that taxpayers have to foot the bill for federal ICE-hold prisoners as well.

And when counties and cities get sued for racial profiling, which is sure to happen when you force
local law enforcement (good people who have not received the same training as Border Patrol officers)
to become de facto immigration agents, who pays that bill for those settlements and/or judgments?
Local property taxpayers have to pick up the tab as well.

And again, my voters have no one to hold accountable.

There's a saying for all of this. It's called "taxation without representation."

Representatives, just as you have protested the federal government's meddling in your business, local
governments, taxpayers and voters resent the fact that you are telling us how we should run our own
communities. I humbly ask that you reject this bill for the Un-American approach it represents.

I thank you for your time and ask that you strongly take into consideration the severe implications
that come with passage of S.B. 4.