Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and members, my name is Andrew Rivas and I am the executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference. The TCC is the statewide association of the 15 Roman Catholic dioceses in our state and it is our responsibility to advocate for the public policy positions of all the active Bishops of Texas.

First, let me begin by thanking you Mr. Chairman, and the committee, for allowing me to testify today on House Bill 17. The TCC opposes this bill because HB 17 would allow local law enforcement to hold in custody any person they suspect of misdemeanor trespass and of being an immigrant, until the Department of Homeland Security has verified the immigration status of the person in custody. The TCC believes that the language of the bill is very broad and would encourage racial profiling.

HB 17 and other proposed bills that encourage local police officers to investigate immigration status in order to crack down on illegal immigrants are bad public policy and could lead to higher crime rates and cost Texans millions of dollars. As an example, let me cite the 2008 review of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office by the conservative Goldwater Institute.  From 2004-2007, the approximate time the famous AZ county began to crack down on illegal immigrants the Goldwater Institute found that, according to the county’s own statistics, violent crimes increased by 69 percent - and homicides increased by more than 160 percent. Response times to emergency calls in that same time frame averaged 11 minutes - more than twice MCSO's goal of five minutes. I am still trying to get financial impact information but I couldn’t help but notice in the same study that immigration sweeps led to 16,000 people going through the booking process but only 200 arrests of illegal immigrants. Such a statistic makes you wonder just how many U.S. citizens have been profiled and mistakenly picked up by local law enforcement.