Texas Plan Considered To Increase Penalties For Human Smuggling

The Texas House is debating a bill that would increase the penalty for human smuggling. Republicans have introduced legislation that would pump up the minimum sentence from two years to ten years in prison. State Representative Ryan Guillen says that the Mexican cartels are paying people big bucks to smuggle illegal immigrants from the border to big cities. The goal of the bill is to make that less enticing. Civil rights groups claim the penalties are too harsh penalties for first-time offenders.