Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of Senate Bill 2424, which would create a state misdemeanor or, depending on the context, a felony for those who illegally enter Texas via an international border. My name is Joshua Treviño, and I am the Chief of Intelligence and Research at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research institution in Austin, Texas. In my role, much of my work focuses on the violence in Mexico, and the reclamation of Texas’s sovereignty under the Constitution.
Border Security
Cartels Are Exploiting Mexico’s Cattle Trade As Americans Pay More For Beef
Traffickers use falsified paperwork and black-market identification tags to launder smuggled animals into legitimate Mexican commerce. This week, the United States began reopening its southern border to Mexican cattle after New World Screwworm forced the U.S. Department of Agriculture to close livestock ports along the border. Douglas, Arizona, reopened first, across from Agua Prieta, Sonora....
August 25, 2026