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 Editorials | Opinions | February 2007 
Texas Prisons in Mexico? No Güey!
 Hector Chavez - houstonist.com
What could be more fun than building another Texas prison? Building one in Mexico, says Sen. Craig Estes, north Texas state senator and fertilizer magnate, in his recent Bill SB 185. The very hypothetical prisons would be intended for Mexican nationals doing time for nonviolent crimes.
As reported last week in an AP story, Estes' argument goes roughly as follows: Texas is facing a squeeze in prison space in the near future. Since roughly five percent of Texas prisoners are Mexican citizens, why not keep the nonviolent ones south of the border? Down there, they'll be closer to both their families and their final destination, since they are currently deported after completing their sentences. And, just like leather goods and bottles of vanilla extract, the Mexican prisons Texas prisons in Mexico would cost less to make and maintain, being "Texan quality" yet costing half as much.
A reasonably-argued idea, perhaps, unless you get all caught up with the minor issues such as "plausibility" or "legality". An amendment to the Texas constitution would be required to make the project legit. Before that, of course, comes the problem of everybody else howling at the idea. In a stately and fulsome rebuttal by Democratic Sen. John Whitmire of north Houston, the merits of the proposal were carefully balanced and weighed:
"Hell no!" Sen. Whitmire opined. "It's pretty generally accepted it's unconstitutional and unworkable. It's interesting to talk about it, but Mexico prisons are dysfunctional." Houstonist is shocked at this last claim of his.
The story was also picked up a few weeks ago by the folks at Dan Patrick's Lone Star Times, where some conservative-leaning blog readers angrily demanded to know what party was responsible for "this tripe". As one of their readers classily suggested: "Rope and an oak tree, permanently rehabilitated. Not for the Mexican prisoners, but for the idiot that drafted this." Oh. My. The revelation that Craig Estes hails from the G.O.P. caused some uncomfortable shifting in seats, but you can't blame the man for thinking outside of the box.
Or maybe you can: according to today's Daily Texan, Estes tried suggesting something similar two years ago, but subsequently found himself dodging the rotten tomatoes thrown from the typically unruly Senate Criminal Justice Committee. |
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