A congressional committee is demanding Travis County District Attorney José Garza provide them with years’ worth of documents and communications related to his office’s prosecution of non-citizens and communication with immigration officials.
A letter from three Republican members of the committee on Monday, including Rep. Chip Roy of Austin, asked Garza to provide the panel with all of his office’s communications with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials and all documents related to how the office handles cases involving non-citizens. The letter said Garza “undermined the rule of law” through his leadership at the office and that the documents were required to “inform potential legislative reforms to address sanctuary policies.”
“This dereliction of duty has raised serious questions about whether repeat offenders, including criminal aliens, are being adequately prosecuted and whether the safety of law-abiding Austin residents is being put first,” Roy said in a statement posted on social media.
The letter cites statements from 2021 made on Garza’s campaign website promising to protect immigrant communities and expand diversion programs in the county, and accused Garza more broadly of a “soft-on-crime approach.”
The district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Similar letters from the congressional panel were also sent to five officials in Oregon, including the district attorney and sheriff for Multnomah County, which includes Portland.
Garza, first elected district attorney in 2020, has long faced criticism from conservative state leaders as not properly prosecuting criminals in Travis County. That includes criticism for failing to indict some felony suspects within the required 90-day deadline, leading to releases for some and extended jail times for others.
Roy previously sent a different letter in early April to Garza’s office asking about the office’s policies related to prosecuting non-citizens. In the April letter, Roy also said Garza was not properly enforcing the law, and pointed to a shooting in March by a 53-year-old naturalized citizen, who killed three people and wounded 15 others outside of a popular bar in downtown Austin.
While the shooter was never prosecuted in Travis County, he did have a prior criminal history and record of domestic violence, and Roy’s letter said the incident represented a “broader issue of localities failing to hold career criminals accountable.”
Tuesday’s letter to Garza’s office set a July 7 deadline for the district attorney to give the congressional committee the requested five years’ worth of documents and communications.
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