SB8

Versions and all nine amendments

The version index and history show Senate and House versions followed by a conference compromise. The introduced bill required agreements for counties of at least 100,000 people, made smaller-county participation optional and excluded counties of one million or more from grants. The Senate substitute reorganized the program, added population tiers and reporting provisions. The House committee report carried the engrossed substantive text unchanged; the major House rewrite came on the floor.

Of the five Senate amendments, Schwertner F1 and Birdwell F5 were adopted. F1 added application-document authority, funding/reporting changes, a January 1, 2026 start and eligibility for certain pre-start costs. The final law retains those last timing provisions and document authority, but revises funding and reporting: the final comptroller report is biennial, not annual, and the separate 60-day sheriff expenditure report does not survive. F5’s requirement to sue in the sheriff’s home county survives. Final comparison.

The three rejected Senate proposals were Blanco F2 (grant-amount disclosure before the agreement obligation, with exceptions), Blanco F3 (termination and protection from enforcement for specified funding shortfalls), and Eckhardt F4 (removing the million-person grant exclusion). F2/F3’s protections are not in the final act. F4 failed at that stage, but the later House/conference design independently made million-person counties eligible; a failed amendment does not prove its policy idea is absent from the enacted law.

The adopted Spiller/Louderback H21 replacement tied the mandate to jail operations, centered it on a warrant-service model or broader alternative, proposed one-time grants of $5,000–$40,000, and created a separate annual reimbursement program. Two Romero amendments to that replacement were adopted: H22 required disclosure of program donations; H23 required sheriffs to post their agreements online. Moody H24, allowing qualifying border-county agreements with additional Homeland Security agencies, was tabled. Official amendment dispositions.

The May 30 conference report, printed in the Senate journal retained the jail-based mandate and donation-source disclosure, but removed the special warrant-service model structure, the separate reimbursement program and the sheriff agreement-posting requirement. It substituted the final $80,000–$140,000 grant tiers, two-year spending rules and biennial comptroller report. The Senate adopted the report May 31 and the House June 1. Its complete operative text matches the enrolled law.

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

Benefits, burdens and fiscal limits

Participating sheriffs can obtain state support for eligible enforcement costs, including staffing, training, equipment and confinement; the county-budget protection keeps the grant from simply replacing the sheriff’s existing appropriation. ICE gains a statutory mechanism for seeking county participation, but the authority actually delegated remains limited by the agreement and federal law. People subject to enforcement under those agreements can face immigration investigation or detention within that authority. The sources do not establish how many people will be affected, a crime-reduction effect, or a household tax change. Final agreement and grant provisions; federal framework.

The May 30 conference/final fiscal note estimates a $1.4 million General Revenue cost over FY2026–27: $862,000 in FY2026 and $538,000 in FY2027, plus additional grant-program costs that could not be determined without appropriations. The estimate includes five additional full-time-equivalent comptroller positions and $324,000 of initial grant-system programming in FY2026. It projects $538,000 annually for FY2028–30, again excluding the undetermined grants. These are estimated administrative costs, not the full program cost or an appropriation.

Counties must supply resources to implement agreements and document costs. The final fiscal note says grants should offset local impacts, but does not establish full reimbursement for each county. The final statute excludes federally reimbursed costs, limits grant tiers and spending, and does not include the rejected funding-hardship exemptions. Its fiscal note assumes the attorney general can absorb enforcement work within existing resources. Fiscal methodology and local impact; Sections 753.053 and 753.103–.154.

The earlier House-passed fiscal note discussed a separate reimbursement program and $152,852,722 in statewide 2024 detention costs. That was not a new SB8 appropriation or the cost of its final grant program. The conference removed that reimbursement design. Review boundary: complete final law, every listed text version, full conference text, all nine amendment texts/dispositions and five fiscal-note postings were checked. This is not an audit of current individual ICE agreements, enforcement incidents, funding awards or litigation.