Abbott legal brief criticizes Paxton’s rushed lawsuit against Harris County’s immigrant legal fund
“Perhaps the Attorney General only recently learned of this program; perhaps the office’s attention was focused elsewhere,” lawyers for Abbott wrote, noting the fund has existed for five years.
Texas will require proof of legal immigration status to get professional licenses
Officials approved the change after hearing from speakers who argued it would hamper the state’s economy and push immigrants to work without licenses in the black market.
Corpus Christi council votes to begin process to remove mayor
Mayor Paulette Guajardo faces allegations of misconduct over a 2024 hotel development project.
Elon Musk company selects proposed mile-long Dallas tunnel
The Boring Company said it would begin assessing the feasibility of building an underground tunnel connecting a university with a new development.
After killing its desalination project, Corpus Christi explores buying water from a privately owned plant
The City Council rejected building a plant to turn seawater into drinkable water because of the cost and environmental concerns. Now it’s looking at water from a different plant.
After years of pushing for better jobs, Rio Grande Valley leaders land high-skilled manufacturing plant
McAllen leaders hope the new Valeo manufacturing plant is a sign that the region, one of the most impoverished in the state, can attract better-paying jobs for its college graduates.
Texas quietly shuttered Operation Lone Star booking facility in Del Rio
Gov. Greg Abbott had opened two such sites as he surged thousands of DPS troopers and Guard members to the Texas-Mexico border.
Alito blasts lawyer’s word-salad blurring asylum law
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito pushed back Tuesday on an attorney defending migrants seeking asylum, challenging the argument that those stopped at the border have “arrived in” the United States — a key issue in an immigration case. The case stems from a Trump administration petition asking the Supreme Court to overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling that found migrants remain eligible for asylum even if stopped at a port of entry on the Mexico side, concluding they had still “arrived” in the United States. The Supreme Court’s decision could determine whether migrants blocked at the border can seek asylum and how officials will handle future surges. Kelsi Corkran, an attorney representing asylum seekers, argued that the phrases “arriving at” and “arriving in” a location carry the same meaning, and that the only difference between “at” and “in” is grammatical. Alito challenged that interpretation, repeatedly pressing whether migrants stopped at the border can be said to have “arrived in” the United States, a distinction that determines whether they qualify for asylum protection. SUPREME COURT AGREES TO REVIEW TRUMP ADMIN EFFORT TO LIMIT IMMIGRANT ASYLUM PROCESSING CLAIMS AT BORDER “So there’s been talk about knocking at the door. Do you think someone who comes to the front door and knocks at the door has arrived in the house? The person may have arrived at the house?” Alito asked, testing that logic. “No, but that’s past tense,” Corkran said. “Are they arriving in the house?” ‘BLANKIES,’ ICE TACTICS, AND LUXURY JETS: TOP MOMENTS FROM NOEM’S HOUSE TESTIMONY Alito pressed Corkran again, asking whether someone still knocking outside could be said to have arrived inside the house. “Yes, I think here the door is open,” Corkran said. JUSTICE JACKSON AUTHORS UNANIMOUS SCOTUS OPINION HANDING TRUMP AN IMMIGRATION WIN She said asylum seekers at the “threshold” should be treated as arriving. U.S. law allows migrants at the border to seek asylum by claiming fear of persecution, a process that can lead to legal status if approved. Critics argue the system is often abused, with some migrants filing weak claims and not appearing for hearings. An amicus brief filed by the HIAS Foundation affirmed Corkran’s point, asserting that denying asylum for refugees not physically on U.S. soil creates a “a legal no-man’s land.” “People are left in limbo in dangerous border towns, unable to access the process our laws guarantee to those who arrive at a port of entry and present themselves to U.S. officials standing on U.S. soil,” the brief stated. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in his brief that “arrive in the United States” does not include someone stopped in Mexico. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the case may come as late as June.
Democrats rip Trump’s ICE airport move as shutdown nears 40 days: ‘no reason’
Democrats blasted President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to airports across the country on Monday as travel centers struggle to maintain a security presence amid a partial government shutdown, which is now nearing the 40-day mark. “There’s absolutely no reason for him to do that,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas. “[Trump] has put a stop to it.” Instead of using ICE to meet security needs at airports, Escobar said that Congress should pass a proposal that separates funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from the gridlock. HOUSE GOP TARGETING VULNERABLE DEMS OVER DHS SHUTDOWN, TSA CHAOS Fellow Democrat Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., echoed Escobar’s condemnation of the deployment. “I think it’s a horrible, horrible idea that’s just going to cause more problems,” Grijalva said. Like the rest of the agencies that operate under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), funding for TSA ran dry on Feb. 14 over Democrat-led demands to reform ICE, the agency at the heart of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Democrats have conditioned their support for DHS funding on a ban on masks for ICE agents, stiffer warrant requirements for apprehending suspects in public and a ban on roaming patrols, among other changes. LIZ PEEK: VOTERS TELL CONGRESS ‘DO YOUR JOB’ AND END THE DHS SHOWDOWN Republicans have rebuffed the demands, arguing they would handcuff Trump’s immigration enforcement goals. Republicans need at least seven Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster in the Senate, where they hold just 53 seats. As the standoff reaches the 40-day mark, TSA agents have struggled to continue working while covering costs. Trump announced on Monday that he would deploy ICE in an effort to shore up airport security. However, Grijalva voiced concern that their immigration-focused work might clash with places of travel. “I think that their whole job is to try to pick people off that they think are not legally in the United States. That’s most of our big travel hubs,” Grijalva said. SENATE REPUBLICANS MOVE TO REOPEN DHS WITH NEW PLAN, WAIT FOR DEMOCRATIC BUY-IN She expressed concern that ICE agents wouldn’t have sufficient time to receive the training afforded to regular airport security. “So, if you think about it, I don’t know how they would be helpful in making people feel calm. If I were an international traveler, I wouldn’t want to come to the United States to deal with a rogue agency that is under-trained,” Grijalva said. According to DHS, more than 366 TSA agents have left the force. TSA agents missed their first full paychecks on March 13.
DHS deal in limbo as Democrats demand tougher ICE crackdown despite GOP compromise
Senate Democrats rejected Republicans’ latest offer to reopen Homeland Security, despite the deal giving them much of what they asked for. Senate Republicans crafted a framework to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after meeting with President Donald Trump earlier in the week that would carve out immigration enforcement funding and include some reforms to immigration operations. It mirrors a similar proposal that Democrats tried to advance on the Senate floor twice during the shutdown, which entered its 39th day on Wednesday. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats aren’t satisfied with the latest offer, which is still being finalized. SENATE REPUBLICANS MOVE TO REOPEN DHS WITH NEW PLAN, WAIT FOR DEMOCRATIC BUY-IN “Negotiations are ongoing, and they’ve sent us an offer,” Schumer said. “And we’ll be sending them an offer back. And I can assure you it will contain significant reform in it.” But by Wednesday morning, Senate Democrats had yet to send an offer to Republicans. After meeting with Trump and hoping that they had a workable deal, Republicans are now frustrated that Democrats are balking. “We finally just said, ‘Stop. We’ll just fund everything but [Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)],’” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. “That’s what you said you wanted at the beginning. Let’s do that.” “That’s what we’re doing,” he continued. “So no extra language, no extra playing with it. We’re doing just the baseline. We don’t like it. They don’t like it. It opens everything up and gets everybody funded again.” CORNYN TARGETS LAWMAKERS’ AIRPORT FAST PASS AS TSA LINES GROW DURING DHS SHUTDOWN Republicans’ framework also hit a snag on Tuesday when Trump acknowledged that the GOP was getting “fairly close, but I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it.” Democrats still want stringent reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) baked into any deal and have shut down previous offers from the White House that addressed most of their main concerns, minus requiring judicial warrants for DHS agents and unmasking. “If we are talking about funding any part of ICE or [Customs and Border Protection], we absolutely must take some key steps to rein them in,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said. “The current Republican offer in front of us does not do that.” The latest chapter in the ongoing back-and-forth comes after negotiations between both sides appeared dead in the water, but reignited last week. Republicans were hopeful that after finally getting Democrats into a room, they could break through the logjam and reopen the agency as thousands of federal workers go without pay, lines at airports produce staggering delays, and worries about attacks on the homeland increase. DHS SHUTDOWN TIED FOR SECOND-LONGEST EVER AS DEMS AGAIN BLOCK FUNDING AMID AIRPORT CHAOS, TERRORISM CONCERNS That shifted over the weekend when Trump demanded that the GOP combine DHS funding with the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which had a chilling effect on the talks between Democrats and Republicans. Now, despite concessions on ICE funding, Democrats say funding for that portion of DHS wasn’t the real problem. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital that immigration enforcement wasn’t just happening at ERO, but operating through Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). “They’ve created this problem in which it’s really hard to address an immigration enforcement operation that’s out of control because it is funded out of almost every part of the DHS budget,” Murphy said. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who has been involved in direct talks with Senate Republicans and Trump officials, said that the remaining question was to ensure that funding that is going to HSI and CBP does make its way back into ERO, effectively requiring strict guardrails to prevent any funding from going where it shouldn’t. “The idea is, HSI should do what HSI should do, CBP does what CBP should do, but not end up augmenting and running the pause on the funding of enforcement,” King said. Still, Republicans aren’t happy with Democrats turning their back on the framework that they believed gave them exactly what they wanted. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told Fox News Digital that Democrats couldn’t just “back up” every time a deal was put on the table. “Look, we did all this work, we talked about framework, we get it squared away with the White House, we get it squared away with our caucus, and then they want something more,” Hoeven said. “So I’m not sure.”