Senate committee hears SB 36 to create homeland security division inside DPS; bill left pending

Senate committee members on the Committee on Border Security heard testimony Wednesday on Senate Bill 36, a measure from Sen. Charles Parker to establish a homeland security division within the Texas Department of Public Safety that would centralize border security, critical-infrastructure protection and emergency-preparedness functions; the committee left the bill pending for further consideration.

Sen. Charles Parker, the bill’s author, told the committee SB 36 “seeks to establish a homeland security division within the Department of Public Safety to enhance the security and resiliency of our great state, particularly the areas of border security, critical infrastructure protection, and emergency preparedness.”

The bill would consolidate existing functions dispersed across DPS and other agencies, create a centralized intelligence-collection and sharing process for border and infrastructure threats, and prioritize sectors such as energy, communications, transportation and water systems, Parker said. He offered a committee substitute that he said increases collaboration between DPS and the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM).

Why it matters: supporters and witnesses said the state faces evolving, transnational threats that require closer coordination and a single, sustained structure inside DPS. Opponents and some public witnesses warned the plan could fall short on execution, raised privacy concerns about expanded surveillance tools and asked how the state would oversee private actors participating around the border.

Discussion highlights

- Funding and staffing: Committee members pressed for clarity on cost. A fiscal figure of roughly $6,000,000 for additional staff was cited by Director Freeman Martin of DPS; Martin said the bill would add about 23 full-time equivalents while most personnel and contracts would come from existing resources. A senator referenced a fiscal note of about $7,100,000; Parker and Martin clarified that the bill’s principal new cost is the modest additional FTE complement and that much of the division would be built from existing personnel and contracts.

- Permanence and structure: Several senators asked whether the bill would codify border-security operations permanently inside DPS rather than leaving the structure to administrative change. Parker said that was the intent: the bill would make the division a legislatively recognized, ongoing structure and not a simply administrative construct that could be removed between administrations.

- Private actors and militias: Director Martin told the committee DPS does not partner with private militia groups and discourages their involvement, saying, “We don't work with them and we place them as we would any citizen,” citing arrests of individuals not authorized to carry firearms. Senators asked how the bill would authorize or limit private organizations’ roles; authors and witnesses described planned partnerships with higher-education institutions and private-sector technology vendors for research, training and volunteer programs, but emphasized oversight and formal contracting.

- Surveillance and privacy: Committee members asked about DPS’s use of artificial-intelligence tools. Martin said those tools are used “as a tool, to point us in a direction” and described their use in time-sensitive, threat-to-life investigations. He noted DPS has multiyear contracts for certain tools and defended limited emergency use in investigations while acknowledging legal constraints on how those tools are used in court.

Public testimony and expert comment

- Amon Blair, senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and a former U.S. Border Patrol agent, backed the bill, saying, “The threats confronting our state today are complex, coordinated and transnational in nature.”

- Brent Smith, a county attorney working at the border, said SB 36 provides needed coordination but warned the committee that the measure could founder at the implementation stage: “I think this bill is a good start, but I believe we're gonna have issues on the implementation side.”

- PK Kelly, representing Orange Diamond Consulting Group, cautioned the committee that SB 36 “as written, will not achieve its mission critical goals,” arguing the state still lacks specialist foreign-intelligence and counterintelligence capacity and that some capabilities cannot be built quickly by converting peace officers into intelligence officers.

What the bill would do and limits discussed

Supporters described three primary functions for the new division: border security, preparedness (large-scale training and exercises), and critical-infrastructure protection. Parker and Martin said the division would coordinate multi-agency operations, fuse intelligence from federal, state, local and private partners, and run planning and education programs with higher-education institutions. Martin said some named programs, such as Operation Drawbridge (a camera and surveillance support effort), rely on both state and Texas Military Department personnel and could be scaled up or down as operational needs and federal participation change.

Formal action

The committee accepted a committee substitute offered by Sen. Parker and took testimony. No vote was recorded; senators left SB 36 pending for later consideration.

Next steps and context

Committee leadership closed public testimony and left the bill pending. Senators said they intend further work with DPS, TDEM and stakeholders to refine the bill’s scope, costs and implementation plans before bringing it back to the committee. The committee also laid out, and left pending, a separate committee substitute for Senate Bill 825 (a study of the impact of illegal immigration, changed to a biennial report), which was not debated in depth during this hearing.

Ending

Senators and witnesses agreed on the need for improved coordination while disagreeing on how to staff, fund and legally constrain expanded capabilities. The committee paused action to allow additional review and possible adjustments to the bill’s staffing, contracting and privacy safeguards before a future vote.