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AUSTIN (AP) – Texas has not updated a 2006 study which found that undocumented Texans contributed more to the state than they cost it. But a series of reports released since then by nonprofits and universities have found similar results. Those findings contradict notions that undocumented immigrants strain state resources — a common argument made by some state Republican leaders challenging the federal government’s immigration policies. The studies also offer hints of the cost that Texans could pay if the incoming Trump administration follows through on mass deportations. The analysis estimated that the absence of 1.4 million undocumented immigrants living in Texas in 2005 would have cost the state about $17.7 billion in gross domestic product.

In 2006, Texas State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn set out to assess the impact undocumented Texans have on the state economy and found that they contributed more to Texas than they cost the state.

“This is the first time any state has done a comprehensive financial analysis of the impact of undocumented immigrants on a state’s budget and economy,” Strayhorn, a Republican, wrote at the beginning of the report.

It was also the last time Texas did such a study.

The state has not updated Strayhorn’s analysis or conducted a similar review since it was issued 18 years ago. But a series of reports released by nonprofits and universities have confirmed what Strayhorn’s office found.

Those findings contradict notions that undocumented immigrants strain state resources — a common argument made by some state Republican leaders in interviews and lawsuits challenging the federal government’s immigration policies.

“Texans are hardworking and generous people, but the cost of illegal immigration is an unconscionable burden on the taxpayers of our great state,” Attorney General Ken Paxtonsaid in January 2021. “Texas will always welcome those who legally immigrate, but we cannot continue forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for individuals who skirt the law and skip the line.”

The studies also offer hints of the cost that Texans could pay if the incoming Trump administration follows through on its promise to conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants across the country.

Strayhorn’s analysis estimated that the absence of 1.4 million undocumented immigrants living in Texas in 2005 would have cost the state about $17.7 billion in gross domestic product, which is a measure of the value of goods and services produced in Texas.

“Blanket mass deportations would be devastating not only for Texas’ economy, but for Texas families,” said Juan Carlos Cerda, Texas state director for the American Business Immigration Coalition, a pro-immigrant group of business leaders. “We’re talking about industries like construction, agriculture, health care, manufacturing that are growing but depend heavily on immigrant labor — and many of these workers have been in the state for decades.”

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to office, Texas state leaders have been eager to help him carry out his pledged immigration crackdown. A major pillar of Trump’s first campaign that lifted him to office in 2016 was a promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. This time he vowed mass deportations.

Since his victory, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham has offered the incoming administration 1,400 acres in the Rio Grande Valley that could be used as a staging area for deportations.

Texas is home to about 11% of immigrants in the United States and an estimated 1.6 million undocumented persons — the second-most in the country after California.

When Strayhorn’s office studied their impact on the state’s economy, it found that undocumented Texans at the time produced about $1.6 billion in state revenues collected from taxes and other sources — exceeding the roughly $1.2 billion in state services, like public education and hospital care, they received.

The study also found that local governments “bore the burden” of $1.4 billion in health care and law enforcement costs that were not compensated by the state.

Since then, there have been a handful of studies that reached similar conclusions.

“Beneath all of the sound and fury, however, is one incontrovertible fact: TEXAS NEEDS THE WORKERS!!” stated a 2016 paper published by the Perryman Group, a Waco-based economic and financial analysis firm. The group’s review estimated that undocumented Texans contributed $11.8 billion to the state — after subtracting the $3.1 billion Texas spent on them for health care, education and other public services.

The paper added: “While there are many considerations, the fact is that undocumented workers in Texas generate millions of jobs and billions in tax revenue. Restrictive immigration policy will cause substantial economic and fiscal losses, and optimal policy would be crafted to minimize these dislocations.”

José Iván Rodríguez-Sánchez is a research scholar for the Baker Institute Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston. In 2018, he replicated Strayhorn’s analysis and also found the economic benefits of undocumented Texans outweigh the costs to the state.

“These papers tell us the importance of these people for the U.S.,” Rodríguez-Sánchez said this week. “They are also not only good workers, but also they are paying taxes, buying houses or buying goods and commodities.”

State Sen. César Blanco, an El Paso Democrat, tried to require the state comptroller’s office to update the study regularly in a 2015 bill that he sponsored when he served in the Texas House. But the bill did not advance far.

In an interview, Blanco pointed to the reviews done by non-state agencies and said the information can instruct lawmakers.

“It’s important to realize that immigrants are part of the backbone of Texas’ economy,” Blanco said. “Each state should study it.”

Comptroller Glenn Hegar in 2013 said his office would update Strayhorn’s study or conduct a similar one.

“It is obvious that Texans deserve to know what illegal immigration costs the taxpayers each year,” he said in a statement at the time. “In order for Texas to truly understand the costs of illegal immigration to our state, we do need updated numbers. Whether it is updating that specific study or conducting a similar one, is something my administration will do.”

But that has not happened. His office did not respond this week to a request for comment.

In 2021, a spokesperson for Hegar’s office told the Dallas Morning News that the Legislature had not formally asked the agency to study the matter.

AUSTIN (AP) – Conservative Texas lawmakers and power brokers in recent years have criticized university professors for being “woke” activists who indoctrinate college students with far-left teachings and ideas.

Now, as state lawmakers head back to the Capitol for the 2025 legislative session, they could limit the influence faculty have over campus culture and curriculum. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants lawmakers to recommend potential changes to the roles of faculty senates, which traditionally take the lead on developing curriculum — and ensuring professors have the academic freedom to teach and research their subject areas without fear of political interference.

But conservatives say university curriculum has been infused with ideologies that have helped take higher education in Texas in an overly liberal direction.

“If we’re going to refocus our universities on their mission of open inquiry and freedom of speech, we’ve got to take a look at the curriculum and who’s controlling it,” Sherry Sylvester, a fellow at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, told state senators in November.

Some Texas professors, though, fear the Republican-controlled Legislature could undermine a long-standing balance of power at universities that’s meant to protect higher education from politicization. Their concerns are that without a proper voice on campus, and a guarantee that faculty have control over their teaching and research, faculty might leave Texas or be less likely to take a job at a Texas university, research would be imperiled, and there would be no checks and balances on university leadership.

“There’s very clearly an ideological based attack against higher education and more specifically against faculty,” said Michael Harris, a professor of higher education at Southern Methodist University, a private institution in Dallas. “A place where faculty are most noticeable is a faculty senate.”

Here’s a look at faculty senates in Texas and the role they play in higher education.
What faculty senates do

Faculty senates are made up of professors from across a university. The body approves academic policies, curriculum design, faculty hiring and evaluation, and other issues that impact the academic mission. They also relay university-wide news and plans back to their colleagues.. The senates often meet monthly and invite guests from the administration to speak directly to faculty on university issues.

“They provide a critical advisory voice on so many things we do on campus,” Texas A&M University President Mark Welsh recently told reporters. “The faculty senate does work that is fundamentally important to what we do as a university.”

Faculty at many Texas universities elect a professor in their specific college to serve as a representative on the senate. Faculty will typically elect a chair or co-chairs for a one or two year term. Other faculty members can serve on specific committees that provide recommendations to leadership on specific issues, such as budget, research or facility planning.

Faculty say that it’s vital that they have a voice in the decision making processes and that university boards of regents listen to those on the ground when making decisions that impact their work.

“At a Fortune 500 company, you wouldn’t want the CEO to make every single decision,” said Harris, the SMU professor. “They don’t have time. People close to the product line or business aspect are best able to do that. The same thing is true here. You want your faculty who teach undergrads to make policy (about undergrads). They know the issues there better.”

Bill Carroll served as president of the University of Texas at Arlington’s faculty senate four years ago. He said administrators often haven’t taught in a classroom in years and rely on current faculty to share their experiences that can help shape decision-making.

“The faculty senate can provide that input and that information to administration so they can understand how the faculty are perceiving things and understand what faculty needs to do their job in an effective way,” he said.
How faculty senates fit into a university’s power structure

Public universities and university systems are overseen by boards of regents, who are appointed by the governor. Those boards hire university presidents, who serve as a CEO of the institution.

While there is nothing in state law that specifies how faculty senates should be organized or function, many universities have adopted rules based on the American Association of University Professors’ guidance that faculty have academic freedom in the classroom and in research.

They also rely on the 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities to guide how boards, presidents and faculty senates interact to operate the university. This statement was developed by national organizations that represent faculty, university presidents and governing boards. The statement spells out who should handle each sector of university operations.

“It’s not something that was just drawn up by faculty saying, ‘Here is our best practice, deal with it,’” said Joey Velasco, president of the Texas Council of Faculty Senates who also teaches at Sul Ross State University in Far West Texas. “It really was a joint effort.”

Faculty should be responsible for curriculum, methods of instruction and research, the statement reads. If the governing board or university president ultimately makes a decision that goes against the faculty’s wishes, that statement urges the board or president to communicate those reasons with the faculty.

“It’s through open dialogue and mutual respect and a shared vision that faculty, administrators and governing boards can ensure their institutions continue to thrive,” Velasco said.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has routinely criticized faculty senates

Faculty senates found themselves in Patrick’s crosshairs three years ago when he boldly declared he wanted to end tenure for new faculty hires at Texas’ public universities. It was a radical legislative priority condemned by faculty groups across the country.

At the time, Patrick was honest about his motivations: he was angry at The Faculty Council at the University of Texas at Austin. The elected group of faculty had passed a nonbinding resolution reaffirming their right to teach critical race theory in the college classroom after the state banned its teaching in K-12 schools. In the statement, faculty at UT-Austin said they will “stand firm against any and all encroachment on faculty authority including by the legislature or the Board of Regents.”

Patrick called the professors “Loony Marxists” on social media and accused them of poisoning the minds of college students with such teaching. Ending tenure would make it easier to terminate or punish faculty who were teaching these ideas.

Patrick ultimately was unable to outright ban tenure at Texas’ public universities. But Harris said it’s clear that the Faculty Council “poked the bear.”

“I do wonder, were it not for that, would it have been as much on the radar,” Harris said, though he feels like the wave of similar actions at universities in other states, such as Florida, would’ve led Texas to take similar routes.
Faculty senates can formally voice a lack of confidence in university leadership

Faculty senates largely garner the most attention outside the university when they issue a vote of no confidence in a school leader. These votes are non binding, but are meant as a way for faculty to express their discontent with the direction a president is taking the school. Sometimes, they can lead to the resignation of a university leader. Other times, they’re completely ignored.

Last year, most faculty members at West Texas A&M University in Canyon said they lost confidence in the president for a variety of issues, including his decision to cancel a student drag show on campus. Nothing happened after the vote and Walter Wendler remained president.

At Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, faculty took a vote of no confidence in the leadership of former President Scott Gordon after he accepted an $85,000 pay bump amid a COVID-19 budget shortfall. In that case, the board of regents stood behind Gordon despite the no confidence vote. Still, he stepped down six months later.

Nationally, a Chronicle of Higher Education analysis found that a president ends up leaving office within a year of a no-confidence vote about half of the time.

This spring, more than 600 faculty at UT-Austin signed a letter stating they had no confidence in President Jay Hartzell’s leadership after police arrested a swath of pro-Palestinian demonstrators protesting the war in Gaza. However, that letter came from the UT-Austin chapter of the American Association of University Professors, not the Faculty Council.
Other states have moved to limit faculty power

Across the country, other states have sought to curtail the power and freedoms of faculty. The Arizona Legislature passed a law that would reduce the power of faculty senates. The bill eliminated language in the state that says the faculty “shall participate in” or “share responsibility” for academic and personnel decisions. Instead, professors could only “consult with” university leaders on decisions. Arizona’s Democratic governor vetoed the bill.

When Florida passed a higher education bill that banned diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public institutions last year, it also included language that said public university presidents and administrators are not bound by faculty recommendations or opinions in hiring decisions.

In Texas, at a November state Senate Higher Education Subcommittee meeting, Sylvestor, with the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, suggested that the Legislature require all faculty senate votes to be public, all meetings be open to the public and live streamed, and all curriculum changes made public.

Many faculty senates at Texas universities already livestream their meetings and post agendas and minutes online. Velasco with the Texas Council for Faculty Senates said many votes are taken publicly, too. But there are instances when private voting is better, he said, such as when faculty vote whether to award tenure.

TRINITY – The Trinity County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man for sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child on Thursday. An arrest warrant said a caller told the sheriff’s office that her daughter had been sexually assaulted. The daughter, who officials said is a child under 17-years-old, was reportedly living with relatives in Walker County.

A Trinity County Sheriff’s Office investigator visited the relative’s home in Huntsville and then scheduled an interview with the child. According to the affidavit, the child told the investigator that while she was staying with family in Trinity, she woke up to find Charles Leeroy Wade, 55 in her bed. Our news partner, KETK, reports that Wade allegedly sexually assaulted her at least five times, according the arrest affidavit. The last incident was on Nov. 26 in Trinity when the girl reported that Wade had gotten into her bed and was squeezing her chest, the arrest affidavit alleged.

A warrant was then obtained for Wade’s arrest and he was taken into custody on Thursday by the Trinity County Sheriff’s Office for the charges of sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Texas man who was the first rioter to go on trial for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was resentenced on Friday to nearly seven years in prison after he delivered an angry, profane rant to the judge who agreed to modestly reduce his original sentence.

Guy Reffitt benefitted from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that led to the dismissal of his conviction on an obstruction charge. His new sentence — six years and eight months — is seven months lower than his original sentence.

Reffitt repeatedly shook his head and appeared to be agitated as he listened to U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich and a prosecutor describe his role in a mob’s attack on the Capitol. He told the judge that he was “in my feelings” and upset about the “lies and the craziness” that he perceived.

“I was not there to take over no government,” Reffitt said. “I love this country.”

“No one has a problem with your feelings,” the judge said. “It’s the actions you took with your feelings.”

Reffitt stormed the Captiol with a holstered handgun on his waist. He also was carrying zip-tie handcuffs and wearing body armor and a helmet equipped with a video camera when he advanced on police officers outside the building. He retreated after an officer pepper sprayed him in the face, but he waved on other rioters who ultimately breached the building.

Prosecutors said Reffitt told fellow members of the Texas Three Percenters militia group that he planned to drag House Speaker Nancy Pelosi out of the Capitol building by her ankles, “with her head hitting every step on the way down.”

“His objective was to overtake Congress, physically and with violence,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler.

“In his own words,” Nestler added, “Congress was the demon and he was going to cut the head off the demon.”

Reffitt is one of several Jan. 6 defendants to be resentenced after a Supreme Court ruling in June limited the government’s use of a federal obstruction law. The high court ruled 6-3 that a charge of obstructing an official proceeding must include proof that a defendant tried to tamper with or destroy documents — a distinction that applies to few Jan. 6 criminal cases.

A jury convicted Reffitt of four other counts, including a charge that he threatened his two teenage children after returning to their in home in Wylie, Texas, after the riot. Reffitt’s son Jackson, then 19, testified that his father told him and his younger sister, then 16, that they would be traitors if they reported him to authorities and warned them that “traitors get shot.”

Reffitt’s two daughters spoke favorably of their father during his resentencing. They described him as a caring father who doesn’t pose a danger to anybody.

Prosecutors said Reffitt’s recent communications from jail indicate that he “views his imprisonment as an injustice and as part of a greater cause, and that he maintains pride in actions on January 6 and his involvement in the community of those who he believes have been wrongly prosecuted for their crimes on that day.”

More than 1,500 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. About 1,000 of them have pleaded guilty. Roughly 250 others have been convicted by a judge or jury after a trial.

CORPUS CHRISTI — Many of us know just how harmful fentanyl can be in humans, but what about animals? That’s what several researchers at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi are peeling back the layers after finding traces of the drug in bottleneck dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, as reported by KRIS-TV.

While conducting a routine boating survey in September 2020, university researchers came across a dead dolphin, floating in the water.

They took the dolphin back to their research lab. Then about two years later, they began to use the carcass for hormone blubber analysis but came across the drug instead.

“When I started this project, we did what we call an untargeted study of the blubber, where we put it in a very fancy instrument that’s able to resolve all the compounds inside. We were looking for what we actually found,” Doctoral student Makayla Guinn, said.

Guinn and her team worked closely with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Texas Parks and Wildlife and Precision Toxicological Consultancy to begin conducting a more in-depth study. They also received support from the Frazier Family Foundation, Inc.

Guinn told KRIS 6 News reporter Alexis Scott, there were more than 3,000 different compounds inside the dolphin blubber. Within those compounds were findings of several pharmaceutical drugs, including sedatives and relaxants as well.

According to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine.

KRIS 6 News learned, at least 89 dolphin blubber samples were analyzed within the study, including 83 collected through live dolphin biopsies and six from dead dolphins. Pharmaceuticals were found in 30 of those samples. Fentanyl was found in all six of the dead dolphins, according to the publication.

The dozens of dolphins tested were selected from Redfish Bay and the Laguna Madre in Texas and the Mississippi Sound. KRIS 6 News was told dolphins are often used to examine ecosystem health in contaminant research because their blubber can store contaminants and be sampled.

“It’s not something we were looking for, so of course we were alarmed to find something like fentanyl, especially with the fentanyl crisis happening in the world right now. These drugs and pharmaceuticals are entering our water and they have cascading effects in our marine life,” Guinn added.

Accompanying Guinn in the study was lead investigating researcher and marine biologist, Dr. Dara Orbach. The big question they haven’t been able to answer is ‘How did the fentanyl get in dolphin blubber?”.

“One possibility but not the only possibility is that drugs might becoming from our waste water,” Orbach said. “It’s likely they’re getting these pharmaceuticals in their system from eating prey. Those prey being the same fish and shrimp that we’re also eating over here, considering that the Coastal Bend is such an important fishing community, locally.”

Orbach believes this discovery could lead to more wide-ranging research to trace the source of the fentanyl and limit potential damage to the ecosystem.

“Some of these samples we looked at are more than a decade old and those animals also had pharmaceuticals. So we think this is a longstanding problem that no one’s been looking at,” Orbach said.

Both Orbach and Guinn are in the process of furthering their research. They’re hoping to bring about more awareness to the community on how important it is to preserve our wildlife.”

AUSTIN (AP) — The Republican speaker of the Texas House abandoned efforts Friday to keep his powerful post following a bruising year of criticism from the party’s hard right, driven in part by his overseeing the impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Dade Phelan said he was ending his bid to serve a third term as speaker next year after months of projecting confidence that he would continue leading the state House chamber, which passed some of the nation’s toughest restrictions over abortion and immigration.

But Paxton’s impeachment in the House over corruption accusations in 2023 angered conservatives who said the chamber went too far. President-elect Donald Trump also criticized Phelan over the impeachment.

Paxton was ultimately acquitted in the Senate.

Phelan’s campaign to hang onto the job reflected a broader power struggle within the GOP, which expanded its already commanding majorities in the Texas Legislature in November’s elections.

Paxton’s allies launched an aggressive campaign to oust Phelan during Texas’ primary elections but fell short in a runoff.