SB2601

The attorney general administers compensation for real-property damage on agricultural land, or damage to livestock, timber or crops there, caused either by a trespasser committing a Penal Code Chapter 28 property offense in the course of or furtherance of a border crime, or by a law-enforcement response to a trespasser engaged in a border crime. The defined border crimes include specified controlled-substance offenses, smuggling, evading arrest and human trafficking, and must involve transnational criminal activity. SB2601 adds continuous smuggling to that list. It does not make all immigration violations or all trespassing compensable. Final law, sections 1–2; Prior definitions; Continuous smuggling.

The existing $75,000 maximum per incident remains the overall ceiling. The portion attributable to livestock, timber or crops may not exceed $10,000; it is not an extra $10,000 on top of the overall limit. Cleanup can include removing debris, pollutants and contaminants left during the incident to restore soil to agricultural use. Awards remain subject to the attorney general’s eligibility, application, evaluation and monitoring requirements. The definition of agricultural land includes land whose use qualifies for agricultural-use appraisal under Tax Code Chapter 23, Subchapter D; trespasser means someone entering another’s land without any legal right, express or implied. Final law, section 2; Land definition; Agricultural-use definitions; Trespasser definition.

For trespasser-caused losses under Article 56C.003(a)(1), a written law-enforcement report must document the border-crime connection. On the attorney general’s request, a law-enforcement agency must release relevant reports, including witness statements and criminal-history information, within 14 business days. A lessee seeking compensation for real-property damage under that same trespasser provision must provide the owner’s notarized authorization to receive it directly. These particular report and authorization requirements should not be indiscriminately described as applying to every law-enforcement-response claim. Final law, section 2(c)–(c-2).

The attorney general may not use the outcome of the specified criminal prosecutions when awarding compensation for the covered trespasser damage. The program remains a payer of last resort: an applicant eligible for another reimbursement source, including insurance or a government program, cannot skip seeking that reimbursement. The $75,000 ceiling, prosecution-outcome restriction and last-resort structure predate SB2601; the bill extends the program’s coverage. Final law, sections 2–3; Prior award rules; Other-source requirement.

Identifying application information held by the attorney general becomes confidential under the expanded Government Code provision, but the recipient’s name and award amount generally become public when compensation is awarded. Government employees covered by the provision have a separate written election concerning identifying information, subject to the statutory form and filing deadline. The law therefore does not promise blanket anonymity. Final law, section 4.

For insurance subject to the applicable rating provision, an insurer may not consider whether a claim was made by or for a policyholder in relation to an event documented by the specified police report. This applies to policies delivered, issued for delivery or renewed on or after January 1, 2026. It is not a promise that all premiums will fall or that every insurer and policy is covered. Chapter 2251 has exclusions, including section 2251.003(c)’s exception for certain Lloyd’s plans and reciprocal/interinsurance exchanges writing commercial property, inland marine, rain or farm-crop hail insurance. Final law, sections 5 and 7; Insurance applicability and exceptions.

The introduced and Senate versions added lessees, cleanup and insurance treatment, along with continuous smuggling; the Senate substitute added the agency-report deadline. The House substitute added livestock, timber and crops with the $10,000 sublimit, expanded confidentiality, and proposed renaming the program, a standardized police-report form, broader gift/donation and dedicated-revenue funding, and repeal of its conditional expiration. Conference removed those House proposals while retaining continuous-smuggling coverage, the two compensation limits, expanded confidentiality and the agency-report deadline. The final funding sources are legislative appropriations, credits or transfers and federal grants or reimbursements for the program. The existing expiration—two years after all appropriated program money has been spent—was not repealed. This is not a finding that the expiration trigger has occurred. The Senate adopted conference on May 30 and the House on May 31. The amendment index lists no separate floor amendments; committee substitutes and conference changes were nevertheless compared. All text versions; Conference report; Amendment index; Conditional expiration.

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Eligible landowners and lessees may recover more categories of loss, but compensation is not automatic and the act does not itself appropriate a dollar amount. For the compensation changes, the underlying offense must occur on or after September 1, 2025; if any element occurred earlier, the former law governs. Final law, sections 2 and 6.

The final conference fiscal note anticipates no significant state fiscal impact and assumes costs can be absorbed within existing resources. Local law-enforcement agencies may have to supply information to the attorney general; no other significant local fiscal implication is anticipated. That is a budget estimate, not proof of no administrative workload, guaranteed awards, a new appropriation or measurable premium savings. Final conference fiscal note; Earlier fiscal notes.