Senate Border Security Committee Turns to Port-of-Entry Inspections and Cartel Fuel Smuggling

The Texas Senate Select Committee on Homeland and Border Security will gavel in at 9 a.m. Aug. 13 for the second of two back-to-back hearings, taking invited and public testimony on four interim charges that run from commercial inspections at the state’s land ports of entry to the cartel-driven fuel-smuggling economy along the border.

Witnesses should note the ground rules in the hearing notice: public testimony is limited to 2 minutes per witness, and written testimony requires seven copies for the clerk with the witness’s name on each.

Chaired by Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, the five-member select panel — four Republicans and one Democrat, with Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, as vice chair — meets Thursday in Room E1.016, one day after a Wednesday session devoted to hostile drones and the Department of Public Safety’s new homeland security division. Thursday’s agenda covers the remaining four charges on the committee’s interim list. Because the committee is meeting in the interim, it will take no votes on legislation.

The first charge, “Securing Texas Land Ports of Entry,” directs the panel to study security measures and commercial vehicle inspection capacity at the crossings that connect Texas and Mexico, review ports projected to open to commercial traffic, and consider “the establishment of a uniform inspection requirement at all current and future LPOEs,” according to the official notice. Members are also asked to determine whether inspecting southbound commercial traffic — the Mexico-bound lanes through which smuggled cash, weapons and fuel typically exit the country — is feasible at every port.

A second charge, “Combating Criminal Activities on Oversize and Overweight Routes,” takes up overweight commercial vehicles hauling hazardous materials in the border region, including past accidents involving overweight fuel trucks. A Senate Research Center analysis prepared last session found Texas has seen a sharp rise since 2021 in fuel-related crimes, including falsified transport documentation and overweight or off-route fuel trucks.

The fuel thread runs through the rest of the agenda. The third charge, “Shoring Up the Integrity of Export Fuel,” asks members to follow export fuel from terminal to delivery, weigh the state revenue lost to falsely labeled loads, and recommend closing “statutory loopholes” to prohibit transloading or blending of export fuel. That is largely the territory of Senate Bill 2949, Hinojosa’s licensing-and-penalties measure that passed the Senate on April 22, 2025, cleared the House Energy Resources Committee, but died awaiting a House floor calendar. The federal backdrop has only grown: the Treasury Department has sanctioned facilitators of the Jalisco cartel’s cross-border fuel-smuggling schemes, including a May 2025 action targeting a crude-smuggling network moving stolen Mexican oil into Texas, and FinCEN issued a supplemental alert in June on fuel smuggling and tax-evasion schemes on the southwest border.

The final charge, “Combating Public Corruption Tied to Fuel Crimes,” asks whether the Texas Border Prosecution Unit — a state-funded network that has supported border district attorneys since 2010 — should be added to the definition of “prosecuting attorney” under the state’s public integrity statute. Government Code Sec. 411.0251 currently limits that definition to district attorneys, criminal district attorneys and county attorneys, keeping the unit out of state public-corruption prosecutions.

As with all interim hearings, no legislation will be voted on; the committee’s findings will shape the recommendations it sends to the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027.

Meeting at a glance

Committee members

• Sen. Phil King, R–Weatherford (SD-10) — Chair
• Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D–McAllen (SD-20) — Vice Chair
• Sen. Bob Hall, R–Edgewood (SD-2)
• Sen. Tan Parker, R–Flower Mound (SD-12)
• Sen. Kevin Sparks, R–Midland (SD-31)