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Gov. Greg Abbott outlined several directives to Texas’ Department of Public Safety on Tuesday that would boost efforts to combat “radical jihadist terrorism” in the wake of the New Orleans attack on New Year’s Day.

The statement from Abbott outlined 11 specific efforts for DPS to undertake, including bolstering pre-existing partnerships with federal agencies and expanding programs DPS provides in the state. The new measures come almost a week after a deadly attack in New Orleans in which a Houston man drove to the city in a rental truck and mowed down several people on Bourbon Street, killing 14 and injuring more than 30 others.

The suspect, Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who was killed by law enforcement, pledged allegiance to terrorist group ISIS in videos he posted online before the attack.

Most of the directives outlined by the governor are aimed at increasing or expanding anti-terror resources already in place. Included in those efforts will be increased anti-terrorism task force operations with the FBI, which has field offices in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and El Paso. The statement also said DPS will increase the number of intelligence analysts assigned to assist local jurisdictions with terroristic threats.

“Law enforcement at all levels must aggressively collaborate to eliminate radicalization that can lead to terrorist attacks,” Abbott said.

One directive states DPS will work with federal officials to identify potential threats among “special interest migrants” and claimed hundreds of people who entered the country illegally were on the federal government’s terrorist watch list. In 2017-2023, 293 non-U.S. citizens on the Terrorist Screening Dataset were detained across the southwest border, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 169 of which were in 2023. The data available on CBP’s website does not clarify how many of those were within Texas’ portion of the border.

Republican lawmakers both in and out of Texas have long enmeshed criticisms of southern border security with concerns on foreign-based terrorism, renewed by Jabbar’s connection to ISIS. In 2016, Abbott claimed members of the terrorist organization were “running through the border” and blamed then-president Barack Obama.

In the hours immediately after the New Orleans attack, Fox News initially reported the truck Jabbar had rented recently crossed the Texas-Mexico border before the attack, prompting several Republicans including state Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, to call for “secure borders.” Fox News later retracted the report, and officials confirmed the vehicle had crossed the border in November, prior to Jabbar’s renting.

The directive also indicated it would expand the Infrastructure Liaison Officer Program, which allows private security officials on how to receive training to collaborate with police and public safety officials. Currently the ILO program allows certification for those in certain fields to alert officials more easily to potential threats, and the governor’s office said it would provide additional certifications and coordination.

The statement did not clarify when any specific new program expansions would be implemented. Other policies the governor’s office outlined for DPS included assessing the vulnerability of the state Capitol to vehicle ramming attacks and partnering with local law enforcement for workshops and threat assessment strategies.

Original article published by the Texas Tribune. To read the original article, click here.

“We wouldn’t survive” without undocumented workers, one South Texas produce business owner said. By one estimate, 8% of Texas’ workforce lacks legal status.

In Texas, undocumented people have built apartment complexes and skyscrapers that changed skylines. They have picked fruits and vegetable in fields, cooked in restaurant kitchens, cleaned hospitals and started small businesses. They have become stitched into communities from El Paso to Beaumont.

Now some of their employers worry that many of them could get deported when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

A number of Texas business leaders interviewed by the Tribune describe a sort of wait-and-see apprehension about Trump’s pledged mass deportations. The impact any deportations could have on Texas’ economy will largely depend on the specifics of what Trump does, business leaders say. But those specifics are not yet clear.

“I don’t think any of us know exactly what’s coming as far as policy — we’ve heard all of the rhetoric,” said Andrea Coker of the North Texas Commission, a nonprofit that promotes the Dallas region.

The owner of a Rio Grande Valley agriculture import-export business who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of legal repercussions said four of his seven employees are undocumented. A majority of similar businesses would take a hit should the government deport undocumented people en masse, the business owner estimated.

Without undocumented workers, he said, “We wouldn’t survive and we’ll have to close.”

He said he hired undocumented workers because he struggled to find U.S. citizens and legal residents willing to do the grueling work.

“The people who are here legally don’t want to work here. They’d rather collect unemployment,” he said. “We’ve hired people who were documented, but they don’t last.”

In speaking about mass deportations, Trump and his incoming aides have said they will prioritize deporting people with a criminal history, while also noting that anyone who has entered the country illegally has committed a crime. Any large-scale deportation plans are sure to face legal and logistical challenges.

But Texas’ state leaders are eager to help Trump, and the state is a target-rich environment. The Pew Research Center estimates that unauthorized immigrants make up approximately 8% of the state’s workforce, including a large presence in the hospitality, restaurants, energy and construction industries.

The state comptroller’s office did a study in 2006 to find out how the state economy would look without the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants living in Texas in 2005. The study said their absence would cost the state about $17.7 billion in gross state product — a measure of the value of goods and services produced in Texas. The state has not updated the study since; analysis replicated by universities and think tanks have reached similar conclusions that undocumented Texans contribute more to the economy than they cost the state.

“We know that immigrants are punching above their weight,” said Jaime Puente, director of economic opportunity at the left-leaning nonprofit Every Texan. “We are looking at a significant loss of productivity.”

Among major Texas industries, construction has the highest proportion of undocumented workers, according to the Pew Research Center. Mass deportations could disrupt the state’s homebuilding industry in the midst of a housing shortage, which could lead to fewer new homes built and even higher home prices and rents, according to housing experts.

A recent paper from researchers at the University of Utah and the University of Wisconsin-Madison explored the aftermath of the deportation of more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants nationwide from 2008 to 2013. In the places where deportations happened, the study found, homebuilding contracted because the local construction workforce shrank and home prices rose. The researchers discovered that other construction workers lost work too because homebuilders cut back on new developments.

“We really find ourselves in the situation where anything that kind of disrupts the process of [adding] housing supply would be detrimental to the housing affordability crisis,” said Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Stan Marek’s Czech grandfather arrived in Houston in 1938 and began hanging sheetrock. Nearly 100 years later, Marek’s family owns a large Houston-based construction firm with roughly 1,000 employees.

“I have watched the stages of immigration,” said Marek, 77. “Eighty-five years later and our immigrants are here, and like they’ve always been, to do the work that no one else wants to do or can do.”

Marek sees a long overdue opportunity to fix a lingering mess — the country’s immigration laws. He said deportations “will be terribly expensive and terribly nonproductive” but granting widespread amnesty to undocumented people would not work either.

Marek believes giving a path to citizenship to people who arrived in the country as children and received deportation protection through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, could help the state reduce its workforce shortage. He also believes in the creation of a similar program for adults to gain legal status — which he calls “Adult DACA” — so that they can work legally.

“It’s not just construction. Who’s picking all the fruit and all the vegetables? Who’s milking all those cows? Every job you look at all over the United States, there are immigrants,” Marek said. “We gotta have the business community step up. That’s the key because the business community, more than anybody, is responsible for the labor.”

In the oil-rich Permian Basin, mass deportations could reduce populations in cities and in turn result in closed businesses and the disappearance of sales tax dollars, said Virginia Bellew, executive director of the Permian Basin Regional Planning Commission.

“I think you’ve seen communities just waiting [to see what Trump does], don’t want to take any steps to predict, discuss, or make decisions,” Bellew said.

In Austin, a 43-year-old man who arrived from Mexico 25 years ago said his first job involved sweeping up debris at a construction site for less than $8 an hour. Today he is a foreman for a general contractor, supervising projects and coordinating crews. He asked his name not be published for fear of jeopardizing his pending residency application.

He said he is not letting himself be consumed by the fear of Trump’s promises of mass deportations. He has deep roots in Texas now. He and his wife have raised their three kids in Austin in a house they built themselves.

His kids are U.S. citizens and his wife has legal status through DACA. He’s in the process of applying for legal residency through his eldest daughter, a student at St. Edward’s University in Austin.

“I try to be a great citizen,” he said in Spanish. “[Trump] can not deport everyone because there are so many of us who are indispensable to this country.”

This article was originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A developing winter storm threatens to drop snow, sleet and freezing rain on parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas as frigid air that escaped the Arctic plunges temperatures to subfreezing levels in some of the southernmost points of the U.S.

National Weather Service meteorologists predicted wintry precipitation across the southern Plains region starting Wednesday night, with snow likely in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Farther south, snow could transition to sleet and freezing rain, which meteorologists warn could result in hazardous driving conditions.

An arctic blast descended on much of the U.S. east of the Rockies over the weekend, causing hundreds of car accidents and thousands of flight cancellations and delays. Several communities set up warming shelters this week, including one at a roller rink in Cincinnati and another in the Providence, Rhode Island, City Council chambers.

As the cold front moved south, a cold weather advisory was issued for the Gulf Coast and pushed the low temperature in El Paso, along the Texas border with Mexico, to 31 degrees (minus 0.5 Celsius). The National Weather Service predicted a wind chill factor ranging from 0 to 15 degrees (minus 18 to minus 9 Celsius) early Wednesday.

The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually spins around the North Pole, but it sometimes ventures south into the U.S., Europe and Asia. Some experts say such cold air outbreaks are happening more frequently, paradoxically, because of a warming world.

As points north and east dug out of snow and ice Tuesday, communities in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas were preparing. In Texas, crews treated the roads in the Dallas area amid forecasts of 1 to 3 inches (about 3 to 8 centimeters) of snow on Thursday, along with sleet and rain. National Weather Service meteorologist Sam Shamburger said up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) of snow was expected farther north near the Oklahoma line.

Kevin Oden, Dallas’ director of emergency management and crisis response, said Tuesday, “Our city is in a preparedness phase.”

The storm could make roads slick Friday as 75,000 fans head to AT&T Stadium in Arlington to see Texas play Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Arlington spokesperson Susan Shrock said crews are ready to address any hazardous road conditions around the stadium.

“They’re going to have the salt brine, they’ll have sand and they’ll have equipment on standby,” she said.

A Tuesday night statement from AT&T Stadium and the Cotton Bowl said officials have been meeting with city and transportation officials and that “plans are in place to assure a safe environment for everyone in and around AT&T Stadium on game day.”

Parts of southeastern Georgia and northern Florida endured unusually frigid temperatures overnight into Tuesday and were under freeze warnings into Wednesday.

In northern Florida, with Valentine’s Day just a month away, the main concern for growers fearful of cold weather is the fern crop used for floral arrangements.

Major damage to citrus trees, which typically occurs when temperatures drop to 28 degrees (minus 2 degrees Celsius) or below for several hours, was less likely. Florida’s commercial citrus groves are primarily south of the central part of the peninsula.

An area stretching from the central Plains through the Ohio Valley into the mid-Atlantic region is likely to receive more snow and ice for a few days, which could cause the ground covering to melt and refreeze to form treacherous black ice on roadways, forecasters said.

Hundreds of car accidents were reported in Virginia, Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky earlier this week, and a state trooper was treated for injuries after his patrol car was hit.

Three people died in vehicle crashes in Virginia, according to state police. Other weather-related fatal accidents occurred Sunday near Charleston, West Virginia, and Monday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Kansas, where over a foot (30 centimeters) of snow fell in places, had two deadly weekend crashes.

Nearly 100,000 customers remained without power Tuesday night in states to the east of Kansas including Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us. That was down from more than 200,000 earlier in the day.

More than 5,000 flights into or out of the U.S. were delayed Tuesday, according to tracking platform FlightAware. On Monday, more than 2,300 flights were canceled and at least 9,100 more were delayed.

Virginia’s state Capitol and General Assembly buildings will stay closed Wednesday after a weather-related power outage caused a malfunction in the water system, officials said Monday. The closure postponed lawmakers’ first working day of the legislative session. A boil-water notice that was issued for Richmond’s 200,000 residents could be lifted Wednesday, Mayor Danny Avula said.

University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell said Tuesday he is leaving the UT System’s flagship school to become the next president of Southern Methodist University, marking a major change in Texas higher education leadership and leaving open a job at the center of the state’s culture wars days before the start of a new legislative session.

SMU’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted to name Hartzell as the next president of the private university in Dallas on Tuesday. In a press release, Hartzell said that this was an opportunity “I could not pass up.”

“I look forward to building upon the university’s remarkable momentum and leading SMU into its next era,” he said.

Hartzell will become president June 1. SMU’s current president, R. Gerald Turner, will transition this summer to the role of president emeritus. He has led the university for three decades.

“Dr. Hartzell is a well-respected academician and higher education leader with a strong track record of accomplishments that make him the ideal candidate to build upon the tremendous energy and momentum we are experiencing here on the Hilltop,” said David B. Miller, chair of SMU’s Board of Trustees and co-chair of the presidential search committee.

Hartzell has been president of UT-Austin since 2020. He previously served as dean of the McCombs School of Business and has been a UT-Austin faculty member since 2001.

It was immediately unclear who will lead UT-Austin in the interim or when the Board of Regents will name a new president. UT-Austin did not respond to requests for comment. Many faculty and administrators told The Texas Tribune that they just learned of the news Tuesday morning.

In a statement, University of Texas System Board Chair Kevin Eltife and Chancellor James Milliken congratulated Hartzell on the new appointment.

“We wish President Hartzell our very best on his new leadership role in Dallas, and we thank him for his many contributions to UT over the past 24 years,” Eltife said in a statement, adding that the Board will work closely with the flagship campus to ensure a smooth transition.

Eltife told the Tribune the board will discuss next steps at its February meeting.

Hartzell’s tenure has been marred with tense political battles on campus that pitted faculty and students against the administration. It has also been shaped by legislative efforts to implement a more conservative vision of public higher education, such as a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion offices, and attempts to end faculty tenure and limit what can be taught in college classrooms. During Hartzell’s time as president, conservative lawmakers have increasingly railed against universities that they believe have been taken over by “woke” faculty who are trying to indoctrinate students.

On Tuesday, the reaction to Hartzell’s announcement drew shock from UT-Austin faculty members.

“I think everyone is terrified of the uncertainty of doing this right now right before the legislative session,” said Karma Chavez, a Mexican American and Latino studies professor. “Everyone is on edge.”

For higher education watchers, Hartzell’s departure speaks to the difficult nature of running a public university in today’s political climate.

Michael Harris, who studies higher education leadership at SMU, said the Texas Legislature’s recent higher ed proposals likely made it difficult for Hartzell to lead UT-Austin and made him look for a job elsewhere.

“I think being president of a public university in a red state right now is one of the hardest jobs in higher education,” Harris said.

The University of Texas Board of Regents tapped Hartzell to be interim president in 2020 to replace former President Gregory Fenves, who also left the university to lead a private school — Emory University in Atlanta.

Hartzell took over at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools were forced to shift thousands of classes online and cancel in-person events like graduation.

Then, the murder of George Floyd in late spring of that year sparked protests in cities across the country, prompting students at universities to demand their leaders better support Black students and build more racial equity on campus.

At UT-Austin, Texas football players released a list of demands, including that the school donate to the Black Lives Matter movement, rename parts of the football stadium and stop singing the school alma mater, The Eyes of Texas, which was originally written and performed at a campus minstrel show in 1903. While students and faculty called for the song’s removal, many alumni pushed the school to keep the song, threatening to pull donations.

In July 2020, Hartzell announced that the song would remain, but also announced a list of proposals to create a more welcoming campus. He organized a committee to study the origins of the song and find new ways for the school to talk about its history.

That summer, Hartzell was named the permanent president without a national search.

Throughout his tenure, Hartzell was consumed by decisions made at the Texas Capitol surrounding higher education. In 2023, lawmakers eliminated DEI offices on campus, prompting the school to lay off dozens of employees. The university’s steps to comply with the law angered students who said the administration overinterpreted the law.

“As with all new laws, I fully expect that there will be divided opinions on our campus about both the law itself and its eventual impacts on our University,” Hartzell wrote in a letter to the campus community at the end of 2023. “But it is the law, and with compassion and respect for all of our community members, we will comply.”

Last spring, Hartzell angered students and faculty with his handling of peaceful pro-Palestinian protests after hundreds of people were arrested on campus.

Hartzell requested armed state troopers to respond, prompting some faculty to call for a vote of no confidence on Hartzell and GOP leaders to praise him.

Hartzell’s announcement comes on the heels of other notable leadership changes at the flagship. Last semester, the university’s provost, who is in charge of academics, stepped down from the administrative role. The university police chief also resigned. Last semester, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts was told she would not be allowed to pursue a second term in the job, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

Under Hartzell, UT-Austin has gotten more academically selective. Last year, the school limited automatic admission to only those Texas high school students who graduate in the top 5% of their class. All other public universities in the state automatically accept Texas high school students in the top 10% of their class.

The four-year graduation rate increased to nearly 75% last year. This fall, the university had the second-largest freshman class ever. The university has tried to increase affordable housing for students, including graduate students who often have fewer campus-run housing options. The school also raised $1 billion to support students, part of a massive $6 billion campaign.

Hartzell also oversaw the university athletic department move to the Southeastern Conference. The Texas football team is two wins away from its first national championship in 20 years.

“People ask these questions of a president, ‘How do you want to be remembered?” Hartzell said at the State of the University address last semester. “Depending how this goes, it may just be the president who hired [coach Steve Sarkisian].”

SMU, meanwhile, has had a successful football season in its own right. The Mustangs are 11-3 overall this season and are standing at number one after joining the Atlantic Coast Conference last summer.

SMU has also raised a majority of its current major gifts campaign goal of $1.5 billion ahead of schedule.

The Dallas private school, which enrolls more than 12,000 students, is in a “thriving city,” University of North Texas professor Barrett Taylor said.

“So while it may not be as large or well known as UT-Austin, it’s in a much stronger position than most private universities are,” said Taylor, who coauthored a book in 2019 that included data showing more than three quarters of private colleges in the U.S. are financially vulnerable.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the original article, click here.