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EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) — Vice President JD Vance visited the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday and said that arrests for illegal crossings had fallen sharply because President Donald Trump is demanding that all of government prioritize the issue in ways his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, never did.

Vance was joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, as he took a helicopter tour of the area around Eagle Pass, Texas, around 150 miles southwest of San Antonio. They also visited a Border Patrol facility and sat for a roundtable with Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and national, state and local officials.

Vance pointed to arrests for illegal border crossings plummeting 39% in January from a month earlier. The numbers have actually been falling sharply since well before Republican Trump took office for his second term on Jan. 20, coming down from an all-time high of 250,000 in December 2023. After that, Mexican authorities increased enforcement within their own borders and Biden introduced severe asylum restrictions early last summer.

“President Trump has empowered — and in fact demanded — that his whole government take the task of border control seriously,” Vance said.

In an effort to impose harder-line immigration policies, the Trump administration has put shackled immigrants on U.S. military planes for deportation fights and sent some to the U.S. lockup at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. It has also expanded federal agents’ arrests of people in the U.S. illegally and abandoned programs that gave some permission to stay.

The presence of Hegseth and Gabbard on the visit underscores how Trump is tasking agencies across the federal government with working to overhaul border and immigration policy, moving well beyond the Department of Homeland Security, the traditional home of most such functions.

“The border crisis has become a matter of national intelligence and it’s also become something that requires the Department of Defense to engage,” Vance said.

Gabbard blamed the Biden administration for the presence in the U.S. of people who crossed the border illegally and had possible ties to terrorists but were released into the country while they await immigration court proceedings.

“Who are they? What may they be plotting?” Gabbard asked. “This is just the beginning.”

As part of his visit, Vance went to Shelby Park, a municipal park along the Rio Grande that Abbot seized from federal authorities last year in a feud with the Biden administration, after the governor accused the Biden White House of not doing enough to curb illegal crossings.

A group of friends and neighbors gathered two blocks from the park ahead of Vance’s arrival. Dennis Charlton, a veteran and Eagle Pass resident with property along the border, wore two hats, one to commemorate his service and the other a red “Make America Great Again” cap.

He said he’s witnessed human and drug smuggling activity on his border property that scared his wife and neighbors, but said such crossings have diminished significantly of late.

“I love it,” Charlton said of the visit. “I just wish we could talk to him to thank him for everything that he and Trump have done.”

Vance came to South Texas after Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, saying neither country is doing enough to stem illegal immigration and address drug trafficking, especially the flow of fentanyl across the U.S. border.

Asked about Trump’s tariffs, Vance responded, “I actually think he’s doing a huge favor to the people of Mexico because, if they don’t get control of these cartels, the people of Mexico are going to wake up in a narco state, where the cartels have more power than their own government.”

When asked about the potential for the U.S. to send troops to Mexico to battle drug cartels, Vance said he was “not going to make any announcements about any invasions of Mexico here today. The president has a megaphone and he’ll of course speak to these issues as he feels necessary.”

When pressed by reporters on if an invasion was really coming, Vance was more direct: “No,” he said. “Next question.”

Vance was also asked why more large-scale operations haven’t been started to deport people who are in the U.S. illegally.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Vance said. “We have seen pretty significant increases in deportations and apprehensive and arrests,” he added. “But we have to remember, President Biden gutted the entire immigration enforcement regime of this country.”

Since Trump’s second term began, about 6,500 new active duty forces have been ordered to deploy to the southern border. Before that, there were about 2,500 troops already there, largely National Guard troops on active duty orders, along with a couple of hundred active duty aviation forces.

Troops are responsible for detection and monitoring along the border but don’t interact with migrants attempting to illegally cross. Instead, they alert border agents, who then take the migrants into custody.

Biden tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with tackling the root causes of immigration during his administration, seeking to zero in on why so many migrants, particularly from Central America, were leaving their homelands and coming to the U.S. seeking asylum or trying to make it into the county illegally.

Harris made her first visit to the border in June 2021, about 3 1/2 months deeper into Biden’s term than Vance’s trip in the opening weeks of Trump’s second term.

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Weissert reported from Washington.

A private prison company has signed an agreement to reopen an immigrant detention facility in Texas that previously held families with children for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the business said Wednesday.

Nashville-based CoreCivic announced the contract with ICE and the city of Dilley regarding the 2,400-bed South Texas Family Residential Center, located about 85 miles (135 kilometers) north of Laredo and the Mexico border.

The center was used during the administration of President Barack Obama and Donald Trump’s first presidency. But President Joe Biden phased out family detention in 2021, and CoreCivic said the facility was idled in 2024.

“We do acknowledge that we anticipate housing families” at Dilley, CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin told The Associated Press.

CoreCivic said in a statement that the facility “was purpose-built for ICE in 2014 to provide an appropriate setting for a family population.” The new contract runs through at least March 2030.

ICE officials did not immediately respond to messages seeking information about who will be held at Dilley and how soon.

The agency — which mostly detains immigrants at privately operated detention facilities, its own processing centers and local prisons and jails — entered this year with zero facilities geared toward families, who last year accounted for about one-third of arrivals on the southern border.

The Trump administration has expanded the detention of migrants to military bases including Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba, via flights out of Army installations at El Paso, Texas, as it promises to ramp up mass deportations.

Private detention contractors with longstanding ties to ICE, including CoreCivic and GEO Group, say they offer less expensive options than the military for an array of immigrant detention services and transportation including international flights.

During Trump’s first administration, he authorized the use of military bases to detain immigrant children, including Army installations at Fort Bliss, Texas, and Goodfellow Air Force Base.

In 2014, Obama temporarily relied on military bases to detain immigrant children while ramping up privately operated family detention centers to hold many of the tens of thousands of Central American families crossing the border illegally.

ATLANTA (AP) — Powerful storms that killed three people in Mississippi and ripped roofs from buildings in a small Oklahoma town charged eastward Wednesday, spawning tornado warnings near the East Coast while heavy snow struck the Midwest and dry, windy weather fanned wildfires in Texas.

Meanwhile, forecasters warned that a Pacific storm was expected to bring widespread rain and mountain snow across California and other parts of the West through Friday. California Gov. Gavin Newsom warned on the social platform X that the storm could bring another round of debris flow in the areas left barren by recent wildfires.

Tornado warnings were issued in the Carolinas, Florida and Virginia. Officials in Union County, North Carolina, said in a social media post that the U.S. National Weather Service confirmed an EF1 tornado touched down in the Unionville area. The storm caused structural damage, and power outages after wind speeds of up to 90 mph (145 kph). No injuries were reported, according to the county.

In Texas, high winds and dry vegetation fueled wildfires in several areas of the state. One burned at least 20 homes and structures in coastal San Patricio County near Corpus Christi, County Judge David Krebs said. There were no immediate reports of injuries. The National Weather Service said critical fire weather conditions were still expected across south central Texas.

Severe weather threats persisted a day after stormy winds forced changes to Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, which moved up and shortened its two biggest parades.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency blamed severe weather for three deaths. WAPT-TV reported that in Madison County one person died from a falling power line, and another was killed by a tree falling on his car. A woman in Clarke County died when a tree limb fell on her outside her home, WLBT-TV reported.

At least seven confirmed tornadoes touched down Tuesday in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, according to preliminary information from the weather service. That number could increase, with the potential for severe storms stretching from Florida to New York state, said Bill Bunting, deputy director of the agency’s Storm Prediction Center.

“These storm systems not only have a warm side with severe thunderstorms, but a cold side that can have all forms of winter weather,” Bunting said. “And looking at the forecast maps, this is not the last storm that we’ll see in March.”

Blizzard conditions hit eastern Nebraska overnight into Wednesday, bringing around 4 inches (10.2 centimeters) of snow and winds up to 65 mph (105 kph), limiting visibility and closing numerous snowy roads.

Parts of Minnesota and much of Iowa were on the waning side of a powerful winter storm. The storm brought the heaviest snow of the season to Minneapolis, where the weather service reported 7.4 inches (18.8 centimeters) at the airport. Other nearby communities reported a foot of snow or more.

“I wouldn’t want to say it’s unheard of or unusual. But it’s still pretty remarkable to see the power of nature with these storms,” National Weather Service meteorologist Jacob Beitlich said.

The slippery roads led to at least 70 crashes, the Minnesota State Patrol reported. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz authorized the National Guard to provide support and help rescue stranded drivers.

The Iowa State Patrol blamed whiteout conditions for 68 crashes, including a pileup on Interstate 35 outside Des Moines and numerous wrecks on Interstate 80.

“There’s this series of a whole bunch of small crashes, but it’s closing the interstate,” State Patrol spokesman Sgt. Alex Dinkla said. “Our officers are literally going car to car, and then cars are getting stuck on the roadway. They can’t move.”

In a South Carolina community near Myrtle Beach, where firefighters have been battling wildfires since the weekend, Horry County Fire Rescue said in a social media post that heavy winds would keep firefighters from responding to flare-ups and spot fires by air and from entering woods where damaged trees could fall.

The storms knocked out power to thousands of customers across the central and southeastern United States, including nearly 20,000 homes and businesses in Texas and about 12,000 in Tennessee, according to PowerOutage.us.

More than 900 flights scheduled to fly into or out of U.S. airports were canceled, according to FlightAware.com, which tracks cancellations and delays nationwide.

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Associated Press journalists from across the country contributed.

A yearslong legal battle over the right to an emergency abortion in Idaho has been abruptly upended now that President Donald Trump has moved to drop the high-profile case.

Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department had argued that emergency-room doctors treating pregnant women had to provide terminations if it was needed to save their lives or to avoid serious health consequences.

Yet a little more than a month after taking over the White House, Trump’s decision to abandon the legal fight signals how the Republican administration plans on interpreting federal law designed to protect urgent care when up against states’ abortion bans.

Here’s what to know:
How did we get here?

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. The ruling came down while President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was in office, but many of the justices who helped reverse Roe v. Wade were appointed under Trump.

So in response, Biden warned that his administration considered abortion part of the stabilizing care that federal law requires facilities to provide to patients who show up at an emergency room. A month later, Biden sued Idaho, which had enacted an abortion ban that makes it a crime with a prison term of up to five years for anyone who performs or assists in an abortion.

The Biden administration argued that Idaho’s abortion ban prevented ER doctors from offering an abortion if a woman needs one in a medical emergency. But Idaho’s attorney general has pointed out that federal law also requires hospitals to consider the health of the “unborn child” in its treatment, too.

The lawsuit has twisted and turned in the legal system ever since. Last year, the Supreme Court agreed to step into the Idaho case, but it handed down a narrow ruling: Hospitals were allowed to make determinations about emergency pregnancy terminations, but the key legal question about what care hospitals should legally provide remains unresolved.
Tell me more about this federal law

Known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA, the 1986 law requires emergency rooms to offer a medical exam if you turn up at their facility. The law applies to any ERs that accept Medicare funding — so nearly all of them.

Those ERs are also required to stabilize patients experiencing a medical emergency before discharging or transferring them. Notably, if the ER doesn’t have the resources or staff to treat a patient, medical staffers must arrange a medical transfer to another hospital — they can’t simply direct a patient to go elsewhere.

EMTALA is more scrutinized than ever since Roe was overturned. Multiple doctors and families have told The Associated Press about pregnant women with dangerous medical conditions showing up in hospitals and doctors’ offices only to be denied the abortions that could help treat them. Some women described facing harmful delays.
Has Trump said why he’s dropping the case?

Not yet. And the DOJ’s three-page motion didn’t explain why they wanted to abandon the lawsuit either. However, since having a hand in revoking the constitutional right to abortion, Trump has repeatedly touted his support of leaving abortion regulations up to the states.

Meanwhile, ending the effort to use federal law to protect emergency abortions was a goal of Project 2025, the blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation for a second Trump term, which calls for reversing what it describes as “distorted pro-abortion” interpretations of federal law. Trump insisted during his 2024 presidential campaign that Project 2025 was not part of his agenda.

“Their move to drop this case against Idaho I think really shows what their true priorities are — and it is to push an anti-abortion political agenda rather than support the lives, health and well being of pregnant women and people, not just in Idaho but across the country because this case does have far-reaching impact,” said Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, an association of abortion providers.
What’s going on elsewhere?

Trump’s decision to drop the Idaho case comes several months after the Supreme Court said the federal government couldn’t require hospitals to provide pregnancy terminations when it would violate Texas’ abortion ban.

Texas had sued over the Biden administration’s enforcement of EMTALA, and a lower federal court eventually sided with the state. But similar to the case in Idaho, the Supreme Court stopped short of deciding whether the federal law can supersede a state’s abortion ban.

Meanwhile, concern has grown over whether Trump’s decision in the Idaho case is a sign that his administration may also reverse course in a longstanding legal battle over telehealth access to mifepristone, the medication used in the nation’s most common abortion method.

The Department of Justice under Biden had sought to dismiss a complaint brought by a handful states seeking to roll back access to mifepristone. It’s currently unclear how Trump plans on proceeding.

TEXAS – Newsweek reports that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has canceled the lease for the U.S. attorney’s office in Corpus Christi, leaving prosecutors racing to find a new workplace. The office handles cases from Border Patrol checkpoints near Falfurrias and Sarita, while its Civil Division oversees land condemnation proceedings for border wall construction. The sudden closure raises concerns about potential disruptions to legal operations tied to border security. Newsweek has contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas. It remains unclear at this stage when exactly DOGE staffers scrapped the lease.

Prosecutors only learned of the decision on Wednesday. The Corpus Christi division operates out of One Shoreline Plaza, a twin-skyscraper office complex overlooking Corpus Christi Bay, just a few blocks south of the federal courthouse. According to The Hill, the U.S. Attorney’s Office remained in the building as of Tuesday morning. DOGE reported that it had terminated a 17,039-square-foot lease for the “Office of U.S. Attorneys” in Corpus Christi. The department listed the “Annual Lease Cost” at $409,689 and the “Total Savings” at $307,267. However, DOGE did not provide any explanation for the decision to terminate the lease. DOGE also reported terminating leases for approximately 2,600 square feet in McAllen and nearly 750 square feet in Brownsville. However, it did not specify which federal agencies would be impacted. Meanwhile, a former federal immigration judge who was recently laid off said that the DOGE has significantly worsened the immigration backlog by dismissing dozens of judges.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas gunmaker Watchtower Firearms filed for bankruptcy last week amid lower consumer demand for guns. Watchtower boasts a range of military, civilian, and precision firearms, suppressors, and accessories. The manufacturer is based in Frisco, Texas, with a corporate office in Spring, according to PitchBook. After acquiring another manufacturer known as F-1 Firearms in 2023, Watchtower shared its aim to focus on three primary markets: everyday consumers, domestic and foreign military, and law enforcement markets. However, its appeals to those customers have seemingly failed to be enough to steer the company clear of financial problems.

Watchtower filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Northern District of Texas on Thursday, which is a type of case often referred to as a “reorganization.” In these scenarios, a debtor can use the time from their bankruptcy filing to the confirmation of their debt repayment plan to reorganize their finances, the Internal Revenue Service says. But failing to reorganize and get a debt repayment plan approved may result in the case being converted to a liquidating Chapter 7. Watchtower bills itself as a veteran-owned manufacturer and lists leadership that formerly worked at defense company Raytheon. And though Watchtower was founded recently, in 2022, it’s still considered a notable brand; Watchtower was nominated for “most innovative brand of the year” at the most recent “Gundies” awards, a voter choice awards in the firearm industry. Its recent acquisition F-1 Firearms also had a high profile, with Donald Trump Jr. saying in 2022 that he took his son to the manufacturing facility to make his own AR-15.

AUSTIN – The Houston Chronicle reports that in recent weeks, state lawmakers have expressed growing anger at the Texas Lottery Commission for its supporting role in a 2023 Lotto Texas draw, in which one player purchased enough tickets to guarantee the winning number combination for what became a $95 million jackpot. In response, executives at the agency have insisted that they could not have prevented the operation because they didn’t know what was happening until it was already well underway. Yet a growing body of evidence strongly suggests lottery officials were well aware of the plan almost from the beginning. And they still chose to ignore basic fair play — helping a single player win a guaranteed jackpot meant ordinary lottery players were unknowingly competing for only half the advertised prize — in favor of selling more tickets. In legislative hearings, lottery executives and other witnesses have confirmed the Houston Chronicle’s reporting over the past year. In April 2023, an entity called Rook TX effectively purchased the jackpot, collecting a one-time payment of $57.8 million, by acquiring virtually all of the 25.8 million possible number combinations.

The operation was planned in Malta and funded by a London betting company. It was carried out by four Texas retailers, all connected to online sales companies called couriers. The Texas Lottery Commission helped in several ways behind the scenes. Prior to the draw, it filled rush orders from the retailers requesting dozens of extra terminals — even though three had sold few, if any tickets in the previous months. The agency also did not challenge organizers’ method of rapidly entering millions of ticket orders into state terminals. Their use of personal iPads and preprogrammed QR codes appeared to skirt lottery regulations. Executive Director Ryan Mindell has said repeatedly that the agency could not have interrupted the big buy because lottery officials were unaware of organizers’ intentions until the operation was well underway. “We certainly had no direct interaction with this bulk purchasing group,” he said during an August 2024 meeting of the Sunset Advisory Committee, which is conducting a once-a-decade audit of the agency’s operations. “We really were not aware of their activity until we saw the increased level of sales that were happening.”

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that state and local leaders are preparing for “severe weather threats,” including wildfires, across Texas after a state disaster proclamation. Harris County was among 33 counties added to the disaster proclamation issued by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Tuesday amid “elevated fire weather conditions” throughout the state. Abbott also instructed the Texas State Emergency Operations Center to elevate its readiness level and prepare to respond to damage caused by wildfires, tornadoes, hail and heavy rainfall, according to a Tuesday news release.

“Texas continues to monitor the heightened wildfire and severe weather threats that are expected to impact large portions of the state,” Abbott said in the release. “High winds, low humidity and dry vegetation increase the potential for wildfires to start in west, central and south Texas, and severe storms in north and east Texas will create hazardous conditions. Texans are urged to limit any activities that may cause sparks or flames, follow the guidance of state and local officials and have an emergency plan to keep yourself and your family safe.” A total of 236, or 92%, of Texas’ counties were under a disaster proclamation Tuesday, according to the release. Abbott instructed a host of state agencies, including the National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety, to prepare disaster response resources ahead of the severe weather. Although the areas most at risk for wildfires are concentrated in the western two-thirds of the state, the Houston Fire Department said in a Tuesday news release that, despite recent rainfall, Houston is still under a red flag warning. Red flag warnings are issued by the National Weather Service when conditions in a region are conducive to wildfires. Houston Fire Chief Thomas Muñoz asked residents take steps to reduce potential fire sources near their properties.