New state Republican Party platform policies 'would burn down the Texas economy': expert

The Texas Republican Party released its 2024 Platform and Legislative Priorities plan and it's drawing criticism from experts who believe it targets religious institutions and would also tank the state's economy.

Dallas Morning News reporter Aarón Torres pointed out the legislative priorities are for the 2025 session and will create Texas' own version of Homeland Security, would bar all non-profits and non-governmental organizations from "assisting" entry into the United States, and ending all public services for unauthorized migrants, which would include public school enrollment.

Policy director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said that the specific part of the legislative agenda that singles out non-profits is a dig at churches, which have been working to help the needy, including immigrants.

"This would likely be unconstitutional—or at the very least a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act," he wrote on X. "That, and creating a permanent underclass of uneducated children."

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Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center strategic adviser Robert Heyman wrote in a thread on X that platforms like this don't generally lead to much. It's nothing more than "a basket of policy proposals." But even as that, he explained it's still "deeply stupid and troubling."

"Enacting this would burn down the TX economy and salt the Earth from which it grew," he wrote. "A Texas 'Department of Homeland Security' at best will just be a way to bureaucratize a money suck. At worst, it will be a way of institutionalizing the state's efforts to usurp federal authorities and undermine civil/constitutional rights."

He too pointed out the barring of NGOs from "assisting illegal entry." It's language he called "super vague." It's nothing more than a "scare-tactic," he said.

"The alternative is that it means Texas is going to stop non-profits from serving immigrants' lawful rights in things like legal proceedings."

What he called the "biggest and stupidest" of the list is "this xenophobic policy mess: 'ending all subsidies and public services for illegal aliens.' Even with a cut-out for access to emergency medical services, this unworkable morass would hurt TX today and in the future."

He said that it would put police and firefighters in to a position of having to ask if someone is undocumented before they put a fire out or investigate a crime.

"That's insane!" wrote Heyman. "It is unworkable and will make the public less safe. The same if you banned cops from serving undocumented people who report crimes. And these are obviously extreme cases, but these outcomes are within the scope of what's being proposed."

He wondered then what would happen to utilities.

He bashed the education aspect of the reported plan, saying that barring children from schools means preventing them from contributing to the workplace and the economy. "Doing this would drive opportunity out of Texas."

"I mean...the lesson of Oliver Twist is not to try and create an underclass of Dickensian street urchins," he said. "This is not a policy that will make Texas more competitive or prosperous. It is a policy that will make California more competitive and prosperous, though."