GOP border bill expanded to stiffen penalty for human smuggling, create border-crossing crime

A group migrants waits at a gate near the U.S. and Mexico border in Del Rio on July 22, 2021. The group turned themselves over to the National Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. (Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune)

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Republican lawmakers’ approach to immigration continued to evolve Thursday as a Texas Senate committee expanded a border-related bill to create a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence for human smugglers and to make it a crime for migrants to enter the state anywhere but a port of entry.