TEXAS (KXII) – Two new bills signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott will change the way the Lone Star State handles human trafficking.<\/p>\n
Trafficking of any person\u2014of any age\u2014is now automatically a first-degree felony.<\/p>\n
Additionally, anyone convicted of trafficking a child or a person with a disability will not be allowed parole, ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody gets sentenced to 50 years in prison, they\u2019re going to spend every day of that 50 years in prison,\u201d Grayson County District Attorney John Kermit Hill said.<\/p>\n
Signs to watch for<\/p>\n
Most trafficking occurs in areas with lots of people and lots of action.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery case like this is going to have at least one victim,\u201d Grayson County Domestic Violence Investigator Mariah Carter said, \u201cmaybe more than one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carter said it\u2019s easier for criminals to hide what\u2019s happening, but there are things everyone can do to keep spaces safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook for the universal sign for help,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n
If you see someone making a hand sign with their thumb tucked into their palm and fingers opening and closing into a fist, call the police because that person is in trouble.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be an alarming sign,\u201d Carter said. \u201cThey don\u2019t know how to ask for help, but they\u2019re doing it quietly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carter said it\u2019s also important to act if something just feels off.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody has an intuition, so if you have a gut feeling when you see an adult, a child, just anyone that seems off, 100% out of the time, make the phone call,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n
Hill said it\u2019s best to play it safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen somebody is trafficking a child or a disabled person, they\u2019re the worst of the worst,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KXII. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS (KXII) – Two new bills signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott will change the way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6974,108142,108143,27,29,28,12352,108144],"class_list":["post-296945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-human-trafficking","tag-kermit-hill","tag-mariah-carter","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texoma","tag-universal-sign-for-help"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}