*This is reported by KERA News.

The Texas House agreed late Thursday to let the governor determine the countries whose residents, governments and other entities could be banned from buying property here.

Members granted the governor such power when they amended Senate Bill 17, whose real estate sales restrictions were limited to countries that the U.S. national director of intelligence has designated as national security threats. Currently, that list includes only China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.

After giving the governor the ability to expand the list of restricted countries, the House then gave SB 17 preliminary approval in a 85-60 vote. The bill now heads back to the Senate.

State Rep. Nate Schatzline, the Republican from Fort Worth who introduced the amendment, said the goal was to make sure that any threats to Texas could quickly be addressed.

“Our governor can act swiftly rather than waiting for a year for that to be added into the [director of national intelligence’s] designated country list,” he said.

That amendment drew rebuke from Democrats.

“This gives the governor unfettered power to add whatever county he wants to in this bill,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, chair of House Democratic Caucus. “It’s kind of dangerous to say one person can decide whatever country he or she wants to add to this without any oversight, without any controls — this is the definition of overreach.”

Schatzline’s amendment also allows the governor to bar people “transnational criminal organizations” to the list of entities barred from buying Texas property. Schatzline pointed to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as an example.

State Rep. Cole Hefner, the Mt. Pleasant Republican carrying SB 17 in the lower chamber, described the bill during Thursday’s hourslong debate as “securing Texas land and natural resources and making sure that this precious resource does not fall prey to adversarial nations and oppressive regimes that wish to do us harm.”

The bill’s advancement came over opposition from Democrats who are concerned that it could be used to potentially discriminate against Asian Americans.

The bill will need one more House vote before it goes back to the Senate. The upper chamber previously approved a version of the bill, but House members amended several key portions of it Thursday.

The Senate’s previous version would have exempted anyone or any entity that leased the property to someone else for under 100 years. The House limited that exemption to property leased to someone else for one year or less. Rep. Mitch Little called the 100-year lease exemption “a loophole that you could drive a Mack truck through.”

The House also previously amended the bill to exempt lawful permanent residents.

But Democrats failed to make changes to the bill several times Thursday. Their failed amendments included provisions that would have exempted visa holders such as medical students and researchers, performers and athletes. They also raised concerns that the law could hurt the Texas economy.

SB 17 is Brenham Republican Sen. Lois Kolkhorst’s second attempt at limiting who can buy property in Texas. Similar legislation she authored in 2023 died in the House. In committee hearings this year, she described the legislation as protecting Texas’ assets from “hostile nations.”

“This is a matter of national security,” she said in March. “Texas must act now to protect our land, food sources, water, and natural resources.”

A batch of new, more conservative lawmakers were elected to the House last year, giving new life to legislation that struggled in previous sessions. Chief among those measures are the creation of school vouchers.

If passed, the bill goes into effect Sept. 1 and would only apply to purchases or acquisitions after that date.

It would require the attorney general’s office to create a process to investigate possible violations and refer the matter to a district court. If the court finds a violation, it would be authorized to order the purchaser to divest from the property either by selling it or terminating the lease, according to the House Research Organization’s most recent analysis of the bill. The court also would be required to refer the matter for potential criminal offenses.

The amount of Texas property owned by entities from outside the U.S. is not tracked in detail, aside from agricultural land. But Joshua Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law, said it is likely a very small fraction. In the U.S. overall, Chinese investors own less than 1% of total foreign-held acreage, according to 2021 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Investors from Russia, Iran and North Korea collectively own less than 3,000 acres.

But to Abraham George, chair of the Texas Republican Party, 1% is too much — which is why the bill was a party priority.

Rep. Angie Chen Button, who was only the second Asian American woman to serve in the Legislature and whose parents fled from China, also spoke in support of the bill Thursday night, saying the bill aims to “protect our freedom, liberty and national security.” She introduced a similar bill last session.

Some Asian Texans are concerned the bill would create animosity and “state-sanctioned racial profiling,” said Lily Trieu, executive director of the civic engagement group Asian Texans for Justice.

The bill doesn’t prohibit purchases of land based on national origin, which would violate federal civil rights laws. Instead, it prohibits people based on their permanent residence.

Wu, who immigrated to the United States from China as a child, said the bill could impact not just Chinese people in Texas, but members of all Asian communities in the state.

“Nobody knows the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean, right? Nobody knows what your immigration status is,” he said in an interview. “When they discriminate against you … when they look for people to assault, they don’t really care what you are. They care that you have Asian face.”

Trieu said the group’s No. 1 concern is that individuals shouldn’t be conflated with governments.

“Just like how no one here would want to travel to another country and be held individually accountable for what Governor Abbott does or what President Donald Trump does,” she said.

“These individuals should not be held accountable for what the government of their national origin does, or what their ideology is, or what, you know, the government does as an entity.”

Trieu said the group was formed to engage Asian Texans in civic participation such as voting, but this bill galvanized people into getting involved in legislation.

Wu expects the bill is just the start of that. And even with its passage, he sees it as a loss for the Republican Party because it could push Asian American voters to shift to the Democratic Party in the 2026 midterm elections.

“I think the Republicans are heading into gale force winds in 2026 if they want to alienate and make enemies of an entire community who for a large part has stayed out of politics,” he said in an interview.