Chairman Hinojosa Releases Statement Denouncing H.B. 20, Texas Republicans' "Show Me Your Papers" Bi [View all]

AUSTIN, Texas -- Today, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa released the following statement on Texas Republicans’ filing of H.B. 20, a bill to create a new “Show Me Your Papers” state police force across the majority-Latino region of South Texas to harass and attempt to detain any individual they suspect of being undocumented:

“Born to Mexican parents, I have been an American citizen my entire life, born minutes from the U.S.-Mexico border. Under this law, one of this bill’s newly-created police agents could pull me over and demand proof of my citizenship – simply for my ‘crime’ of looking Hispanic.

“H.B. 20 is an egregious assault on our basic civil liberties and our core values as a nation of immigrants. As we have seen in past iterations of this racist, fear-mongering concept, ‘Show Me Your Papers’ laws only stand to inflict constant anxiety and mental trauma upon all people who even look like they could be undocumented immigrants – whatever that means.

“This heinous bill, if passed, would do nothing to curb the crisis at our border – it would merely subject South Texans to constant state-mandated racial profiling and a level of big-brother police-state dystopia they could have never even imagined.”

https://www.texasdemocrats.org/media/chairman-hinojosa-releases-statement-denouncing-hb-20-texas-republicans-show-me-your-papers-bill