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HOUSTON (AP) — George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston has become the symbol for how the ongoing partial government shutdown has wreaked havoc on the nation’s air travel system.

While long security lines have hobbled airports across the U.S., Bush Intercontinental’s problems have been more pronounced. Frustrated travelers at Houston’s largest airport have confronted warnings of four-hour wait times to get through security, as many Transportation Security Administration workers aren’t showing up for their shifts since they’re not getting paid during the shutdown.

“And we’ve been in this airport since 8 o’clock in the morning. Very tired, queuing and queuing and very slow,” Edgaer Fernando, who was traveling to Guatemala, said on Tuesday.

Union and airport officials have offered a variety of reasons why Bush Intercontinental seems to be worse than other airports.

These include the Houston airport having one of the highest callout rates of TSA workers in the country due to the economic challenges they are facing, higher passenger traffic as the airport is a major hub for United Airlines, and a busy tourism month for Houston.

More TSA workers in Houston are not coming to work compared to other cities

Both Bush Intercontinental and Hobby, the city’s other major airport, have had some of the highest callout rates in the U.S.

While 11% of TSA workers nationally did not show up for work on Tuesday, at Bush Intercontinental, that number was nearly 40%. At Hobby, it was even higher — 43%. The callout rate in Houston has averaged between 35% and 40%, said Johnny Jones, the secretary and treasurer for Council 100 of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA workers nationwide.

But Bush Intercontinental is much busier than Hobby, having served over 48.4 million passengers in 2024, compared to 14.6 million passengers at Hobby.

Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for the Houston Airport System, said that at Bush Intercontinental, 37 TSA checkpoint lanes are usually operating. Only between a third and 50% of lanes are currently being operated, he said.

“We worry conditions will only get worse at airports across the U.S. until Congress ends this shutdown,” Szczesniak said in a video posted on social media Tuesday.

TSA workers were already dealing with financial difficulties and debt from last year’s shutdown, and with higher costs for groceries and gas, employees “are just tired of it,” Jones said.

“There could be a million factors, but I can just tell you as simple as this: If everybody’s being paid, you wouldn’t have no lines,” Jones said.
Bush Intercontinental is among the nation’s largest hub airports

The Houston airport is one of the nation’s busiest and is also a major hub for United Airlines. Of the 48.4 million passengers that went through the airport in 2024, 34.8 million were from United Airlines.

“There’s high call outs, but it’s also the excessive origination point for a lot of flights,” Jones said.

With the high volume of passengers, the Houston airport might have also been experiencing a staffing shortage even before the shutdown, as no TSA workers have been hired around the country in about a year, Jones said.

March has been a busy month for Houston

Besides spring break travelers, Houston has hosted a variety of high-profile events this month.

These include games during the World Baseball Classic and CERAWeek, a major energy conference with more than 10,000 participants from around the world. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo reportedly drew 2.6 million attendees, many from outside the metro area, during its three-week duration. And this week, two of the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 games will be played in Houston.

“While the delays are frustrating for travelers, they do not appear to be impacting tourism. In fact, Houston is experiencing the strongest month of March in terms of hotel rooms and reservations in the city’s history,” Mayor John Whitmire said in a statement.

Wait times at Bush Intercontinental seemed to improve on Wednesday as it took less than two hours to get through TSA security.

“Everyone’s trying their best. And thanks to all the TSA members who are here,” Raj Chauhan, who was traveling to Miami, said on Wednesday.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70

Growth rates in U.S. metro areas dropped the steepest in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border last year because of declines in immigrants while counties along Florida’s Gulf Coast lost residents due to a series of hurricanes, according to new population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The estimates showed that a majority of metro areas and counties had slower population gains last year, which the bureau attributed primarily to a slowdown in international migration, compared to the previous year when an influx of immigrants had helped urban areas recover from the COVID-19 pandemic a few years earlier.

The average growth rate for metro areas fell from 1.1% in 2024 to 0.6% in 2025.

The figures, covering one year through July 2025, reflect the initial months of President Donald Trump’s second term and the beginning of his administration’s immigration crackdown, With an aging America and birth rates in the U.S. declining over the past two decades, immigration has become an important source of growth in many communities.

“With so little natural increase, migration determines whether an area grows or declines, particularly in the big metro cores that have continuous domestic out-migration and are dependent on immigration,” said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire.

Immigrant losses

Three metro areas along the U.S-Mexico border stretching from Arizona to Texas had the steepest drops in population growth rates in 2025, according to the Census Bureau.

The growth rate in Laredo, Texas, dropped from 3.2% to 0.2%. It went from 3.3% to 1.4% in Yuma, Arizona, and declined from 1.2% into negative territory at -0.7% in El Centro, California. All three experienced growth in 2024 because of an influx of thousands of immigrants.

“That pattern suggests a sharper rise-and-fall effect in border regions, where international migration plays a more central role in year-to-year population change,” said Helen You, interim director of the Texas Demographic Center.

As in 2024, the top destinations for immigrants in pure numbers in 2025 were counties that are home to Houston, Miami and Los Angeles. But the drop in immigrant numbers in those counties was stark. Nine out of 10 U.S. counties had lower levels of immigration in 2025 compared to 2024, according to the Census Bureau.

Hurricane migration

Two destructive hurricanes, Helene and Milton, tore through Gulf Coast counties in Florida in fall 2024, leaving behind tens of billions of dollars in damage. The storms also caused residents to leave, according to the population estimates.

Pinellas County, which is home to St. Petersburg, lost almost 12,000 residents, the second most in the U.S., trailing only Los Angeles County, which has been losing residents all decade. Pinellas County relies on migration for growth because deaths outpace births more than in any county in the U.S.

Taylor County, a tiny community ravaged by the hurricanes in Florida’s Big Bend area, had the steepest growth rate decline among U.S. counties last year, with a -2.2% drop.

But the hurricane migration wasn’t limited to Florida. In the Blue Ridge Mountains, the county that is home to Asheville, North Carolina, had more than 2,000 residents leaving in the months after the remnants of Hurricane Helene destroyed homes and cut off power and communications to mountain towns.

Growth leaders

The New York metro area slid from growing by the most people in 2024 to ranking No. 13 in 2025 because of the drop in immigrants.

Instead, two perennial growth powerhouses this decade, the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metro areas, were at the top of the list, followed by the Atlanta, Phoenix and Charlotte, North Carolina, metro areas.

Several midsize metros in Florida and South Carolina had the largest growth rates. Ocala, Florida, located 80 miles (129 km) northwest of Orlando and known for its horse farms, led the nation at 3.4%. It was followed by: metro Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which has become a retirement haven; Spartanburg, South Carolina; Lakeland, Florida, located between the much larger metros of Tampa and Orlando; and Punta Gorda, Florida, about 35 miles (56.3 km) north of Fort Myers.

Sunbelt exurban growth

The far-out suburbs were top destinations among those who had moved from somewhere else in the United States.

They were led by Collin County, Texas, outside Dallas; Montgomery County, Texas, outside Houston; Pinal County, Arizona, outside Phoenix; and Pasco and Polk counties outside Tampa.

The rapid growth of far-flung exurbs is an after-effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Census Bureau. Rising housing costs drove people farther from cities, and remote work allowed many to do their jobs from home at least part of the week.
Where the babies are

Even though New York had more people moving out than moving in, births allowed the metro area to gain more than 32,000 residents. The New York metro area led the nation in natural increase, or births outpacing deaths, followed by the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metros.

The metros where deaths outpaced births in the greatest numbers were Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and several Florida communities with large senior populations — the Sarasota, Daytona Beach and Tampa metro areas.

The two Texas metro areas topped the charts in natural increase because of their age structure and the fact that they have gained more people than anywhere in the U.S., You said.

“Decades of domestic and international in-migration have produced relatively young populations, with a large share of residents in childbearing ages, alongside comparatively smaller proportions of senior populations,” she said.

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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.

LUFKIN — The City of Lufkin will conduct a county-wide test of its emergency alert system at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, April 2. This test will push out alerts through text message, email and phone call. This also will include land-line phones. Cell phones will sound an alert, and a message will be on the screen explaining this is a test.

Lufkin’s emergency management coordinators, in conjunction with Angelina County’s emergency officials, will use this test to ensure the system is working properly. Should there be a large-scale emergency, this system will be used to alert residents of the situation and allow for instructions and directions to keep everyone safe.

“We appreciate the cooperation of our local law enforcement, school districts, hospitals, and other entities to spread the word about this test,” Fire Chief Jesse Moody said. “It is our focus to keep our residents safe.

City of Lufkin residents are encouraged to sign up for Lufkin Alerts! This emergency notification system enables the city to provide you with critical information quickly in a variety of situations, such as severe weather, unexpected road closures, missing persons and evacuations of buildings or neighborhoods, Moody said.

To sign up go to this link. Residents can expect to receive the message on multiple platforms.

RIO GRANDE VALLEY (AP) – Over the past five years at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Rev. Brian Strassburger has gone from ministering to throngs of asylum-seekers in overcrowded shelters to celebrating Mass with detained and deported migrants.

But while border crossings have drastically shrunk under President Donald Trump’s administration, the Jesuit priest said his mission remains centered on embodying the Christian message “that God is accompanying you on your journey.

“And the journey, whether it’s northbound or southbound, involves a lot of suffering,” Strassburger added. “We have a faith that speaks to us amid that suffering. We have a God who says, ‘I want to be one of you.’”

Based in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Strassburger heads the Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, a trio of Jesuits who have been providing Mass and other sacraments to migrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border since 2021.

Border crossings plummet under Trump

Back then, thousands of migrants crammed into bare-bones shelters daily before and after crossing the border in record numbers.

Nearly 2.5 million people crossed the border illegally or came legally through a system for those seeking humanitarian protections from May 2023, when Joe Biden’s administration ended COVID-19 restrictions on asylum, until January 2025, when Trump declared a national emergency at the border at the start of his second term.

Strassburger celebrated Mass in packed shelters in McAllen, Texas, and just across the Rio Grande in Reynosa, Mexico, where many thousands slept in tents in makeshift shelters and hundreds more waited outside for a chance to cross into the United States even as the Biden administration started to impose restrictions.

He was there, at a shelter run by Catholic nuns, the day after the Trump administration canceled all border appointments would-be asylum-seekers had made through an app to enter the United States.

After celebrating Mass, he asked people how they were managing the news. Most said they were feeling devastated, terrified and deceived. But one woman raised her hand and said, in Spanish, “The last thing we lose is hope.”

“Sandra, she doesn’t place her hope in a smartphone app or in a presidential administration or in a government. She puts her hope in the Lord, and that is a hope that doesn’t disappoint, even in the midst of the despairing moments of life,” Strassburger recalled. “If Sandra can say that, in that day and in that moment, how can I lose hope in my own ministry here on the border?”

One priest’s journey to ministry on the border

The 41-year-old pastor’s journey to the priesthood and border ministry was one of grace more than planning, Strassburger said.

Raised in Colorado by Catholic parents, he dreamed of becoming a dad, math teacher and basketball coach in a Jesuit high school like the one he attended. It was after college, while volunteering with the Augustinians — among whom he met the future Pope Leo XIV — that he first considered a religious vocation, especially when ministering to AIDS victims at a hospice in South Africa.

“I’d always thought a religious vocation or a priesthood was like this cross that you bear because God tells you you have to. He’s like, ‘Sorry, Brian, you’re one of those ones who has to be a priest.’ And you’re like, ‘OK, God,’” Strassburger said. “I started to think, what if the life of priesthood isn’t this great burden, but actually the way for me to be my best self?”

In 2011, he entered the Jesuit novitiate and five years later, despite knowing no Spanish, he was sent to Nicaragua for more than two years. On his return, newly bilingual, he spent a summer at the Kino Border Initiative in the two Nogales — the cities in Arizona and Mexico just across the fence.

That’s where he found his mission, the ideal place for his ability to navigate a bilingual context and serve as a bridge. After ordination, his superior asked him to establish a Jesuit presence in the Rio Grande Valley, literally at the country’s margins, the places where Pope Francis had urged the church to go.

“I couldn’t have said yes fast enough,” Strassburger said, adding that the local bishop then assigned him and another Jesuit a simple mission. “He said, ‘Read the reality and respond to it.’ And that’s what we’ve been trying to do since then. And we identified very quickly the need for pastoral accompaniment of the migrant population.”

A new mission at the border for those detained and deported

With the ongoing immigration crackdown, Strassburger has been focusing on celebrating regular Masses at two large Texas detention centers as well as in shelters in Mexico.

One of them, in Matamoros, is run by Mexican authorities for people who’ve been deported — some of them after decades in the United States, like one woman with six children, all U.S. citizens, ages 19 to 6. She was arrested after 29 years in the country, right before Christmas at an immigration court check-in.

“She’s like, ‘I just keep thinking, was it a mistake for me to even try to regularize my status? Like, if I had not gone to court that day, would I be celebrating Christmas with my six kids?’” Strassburger recalled. “That’s the kind of thing we encounter every day.”

Five years ago, William Cuellar was deported back to his native Mexico, which he left when he was 4. He’s now also staying in a shelter in Matamoros, which abuts Brownsville, Texas, to facilitate visits from his mother and adult children who remain in the U.S.

He started attending Mass with Strassburger six months ago and sees him as a friend more than a priest.

“When I met Father Brian, I was like, ‘Cool, I can communicate in English with someone else,’” Cuellar said. “He provides me with the time to hear me out.”

In addition to sacraments such as Mass, confession and baptisms, it’s that consoling, listening presence from Strassburger and the other Jesuits that helps migrants the most, added Sister Carmen Ramírez, who runs the Casa del Migrante shelter in Reynosa with another Catholic nun.

“They bring hope to people,” Ramírez said. “These men, they bring the Gospel, a glance of empathy, of compassion.”

The shelter now hosts about two dozen people mostly from Honduras and Mexico. When the Jesuits visit twice a week, another 50 families come for Mass and activities focused on mothers and children, most of whom are from Haiti.

“Father Brian is a man who knows how to relate to children. I imagine Jesus when I see them running to hug him,” Ramírez said. “His apostolate is of listening, of sitting down to listen, looking at people straight in the face, saying that there is a God who loves them through this encounter.”