Slavery never ended; it just evolved. From convict leasing, Black Codes, Jim Crow, and the war on drugs, there is a clear line between slavery and our prison system that disproportionately locks up Black and brown people. Most glaringly, incarcerated people can still be forced to work without pay—some are even forced to do hard labor picking cotton in former plantation fields. We are part of a national movement to abolish slavery by ending the prison labor exception written into the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution and many state constitutions.

Support the Abolish Slavery Amendment, HJR 63

Black and brown communities are criminalized beginning as children. Kids facing the most challenging circumstances who need support and guidance are instead surveilled, arrested, and locked up through the school-to-prison pipeline. In August 2022, an investigation by the Texas Tribune revealed that about 600 children in Texas’ 5 state secure juvenile detention facilities are living in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. Incident reports told that kids in understaffed facilities were stuck in their cells for over 22 hours a day and were unable to access bathrooms. High numbers of these incarcerated children were on suicide watch, and some had harmed themselves. Research shows that children who have been in juvenile detention are more likely to be incarcerated as adults. We must create a brighter future for our children by closing these prisons and supporting kids and youth in their communities.

1. Shut down TJJD’s five state-secure institutions by 2027 through a thoughtful, staggered closure plan.

2. Invest in building communities’ infrastructure to appropriately address the needs of children who would have been sent to TJJD and allow recapture from closed facilities to reimburse the costs for community-based resources.

   1. A new Office of Youth and Community Restoration at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to advance the well-being of children through a public health lens.

   2. Significant investments in existing school-based tools like restorative justice to combat the school-to-prison pipeline.

   3. Short-term funding to counties to facilitate the transition of children by judges and juvenile probation departments to non-institutional, non-punitive services; this will include the development and expansion of community-based service providers in partnership with the community, schools, and HHSC.

3. Enact policy reforms that decriminalize youth, diverting children from the criminal punishment system altogether.

Operation Lone Star is an over $4 billion enforcement operation that targets migrants for arrest, jail, and deportation. Created by Gov. Greg Abbott, the illegal and discriminatory scheme is designed to target, criminalize and rapidly deport migrant men, many of whom are seeking safety in the U.S. Lone Star violates the Constitution, promotes racial profiling, fuels the mass incarceration of people of color, and encourages white supremacy rhetoric that is harmful to ALL Texans. As funding expands, counties further from the border are signing on to the “immigrant invasion” rhetoric in exchange for money to expand their jails and prosecution infrastructure to lock up more people, citizens, and non-citizens alike.

1. Vote against any measure containing new funding to Operation Lonestar, border security, or immigration enforcement, such as HB 209 or any forthcoming requests for supplemental funding. Gov. Abbott has defied the legislature’s will by unilaterally transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars for this harmful program.

2. Reject new criminal offenses and enhancements targeting immigrants. Bills like HB91 and HB65 expand wasteful, ineffective, and inhumane incarceration of recent migrants seeking safety and threaten state criminal charges against immigrants who have long called Texas their home.

3. Do not grant state law enforcement powers to federal immigration enforcement agencies. Reject bills such as HB 884 that give powers such as arrest, search, seizure, filing charges, and temporary detention to CBP. Especially in combination with the aforementioned criminal enhancements, this would grow Operation Lonestar and enable a massive increase in the criminalization and incarceration of migrants on Texas’ dime.