Senator Pete Flores celebrated the approval of SB4, which would give higher punishments to human traffickers if passed by the House.

"I authored Senate Bill 4 to increase the criminal penalties for human smuggling," said Senator Flores.

The overall purpose of the bill is to give a more severe punishment to individuals who are smuggling humans or running a stash house of any illegal goods or illegal activity. The bill states that the punishment for a specific offense as laid out in Subsections C and D of the bill would result in the crime being classified as a category higher, and therefore the punishment being greater. The bill also lays out that the minimum jail time an accused person could receive for such crimes is increased to 10 or 15 years depending on the crime.

Senator Flores SB4 post | Senator Flores Platform X

Because Texas shares a border with Mexico, there are high rates of human trafficking through this connection. The current laws for human trafficking in Texas are that a person found holding a person captive could face a maximum of 20 years in prison and receive a fine. Child sex traffickers could face a minimum of 10 years in prison, and if a person is found conspiring to help this movement of people, they could face lofty fines which would need to be repaid by the forfeiting of their goods. With SB4, a majority of these penalties could increase.

Senator Pete Flores was born in South Texas and graduated from Texas A&M University. He spent twenty-seven years of his career serving as the Texas Game Warden and served on the State Employee Glass-Door Charitable Campaign Committee. He now has served on the Senate since 2018 representing District 24.