Today is
Friday November 22, 2024
SAN DIEGO (AP) — “Build the Wall†was Donald Trump’s rally cry in 2016, and he acted on his promise by tapping military budgets for hundreds of miles of border wall with Mexico. “Mass Deportation†was the buzzword that energized supporters for his White House bid in 2024.
Trump’s victory sets the stage for a swift crackdown after an AP VoteCast survey showed the president-elect’s supporters were largely focused on immigration and inflation — issues the Republican has been hammering throughout his campaign.
How and when Trump’s actions on immigration will take shape is uncertain.
While Trump and his advisers have offered outlines, many questions remain about how they would deport anywhere close to the 11 million people estimated to be in the country illegally. How would immigrants be identified? Where would they be detained? What if their countries refuse to take them back? Where would Trump find money and trained officers to carry out their deportation?
Trump has said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used 1798 law that allows the president to deport any noncitizen from a country the U.S. is at war with. He has spoken about deploying the National Guard, which can be activated on orders from a governor. Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, has said troops under sympathetic Republican governors would send troops to nearby states that refuse to participate.
Trump, who repeatedly referred to immigrants “poisoning the blood†of the United States, has stricken fear in immigrant communities with words alone.
Julie Moreno, a U.S. citizen who has been married for seven years to a Mexican man who is in the country illegally, is adjusting to the idea that she may have to live separately from her husband, who came to the United States in 2004. She can move to Mexico from New Jersey but it would be nearly impossible to keep running her business importing boxing gloves.
“I don’t have words yet, too many feelings,†Moreno said, her voice breaking as she spoke Wednesday of Trump’s victory. “I am very scared for my husband’s safety. … If they detain him, what is going to happen?â€
Moreno’s husband, Neftali Juarez, ran a construction business and feels he has contributed to the country, paying taxes and providing employment through his company. “Unfortunately, the sentiment of the people who voted is different,†he said. “I feel horrible losing my wife.â€
Some policy experts expect Trump’s first immigration moves to be at the border. He may pressure Mexico to keep blocking migrants from reaching the U.S. border as it has since December. He may lean on Mexico to reinstate a Trump-era policy that made asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.
Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports immigration restrictions, highlighted campaign remarks by Vice President-elect JD Vance that deporting millions would be done one step at a time, not all at once.
“You’re not talking about a dragnet,†Arthur, a former immigration judge, told The Associated Press. “There’s no way you could do it. The first thing you have to do is seal the border and then you can address the interior. All of this is going to be guided by the resources you have available.â€
Elena, a 46-year-old Nicaraguan who has been living in the United States illegally for 25 years, couldn’t sleep after Trump’s victory, crying about what to do if she and her husband, 50, are deported. They have two adult daughters, both U.S. citizens, who have had stomach pain and respiratory problems from anxiety about the election.
“It is so difficult for me to uproot myself from the country that I have seen as my home,†said Elena, who lives in South Florida and gave only her first name for fear of being deported. “I have made my roots here and it is difficult to have to abandon everything to start over.â€
Advocates are looking at where deportation arrests might take place and are watching especially closely to see if authorities adhere to a longstanding policy of avoiding schools, hospitals, places of worship and disaster relief centers, said Heidi Altman, federal advocacy director for the National Immigration Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Fund.
“We’re taking it very seriously,†said Altman. “We all have to have our eyes wide open to the fact that this isn’t 2016. Trump and Stephen Miller learned a lot from their first administration. The courts look very different than they did four years ago.â€
Trump is expected to resume other far-reaching policies from his first term and jettison key Biden moves. These include:
—Trump has harshly criticized Biden policies to create and expand legal pathways to entry, including an online app called CBP One under which nearly 1 million people have entered at land crossings with Mexico since January 2023. Another policy has allowed more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to fly into the country with financial sponsors.
— Trump slashed the number of refugees screened abroad by the United Nations and State Department for settlement in the U.S. to its lowest level since Congress established the program in 1980. Biden rebuilt it, establishing an annual cap of 125,000, up from 18,000 under Trump.
—Trump sought to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shielded people who came to the U.S. as young children from deportation. A lawsuit by Republican governors that has seemed headed for the Supreme Court challenges DACA. For now, hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients may renew their status but new applications aren’t accepted.
—Trump dramatically curtailed the use of Temporary Protected Status, created under a 1990 law to allow people already in the United States to stay if their homelands are deemed unsafe. Biden sharply expanded use of TPS, including to hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Venezuelans.
Maribel Hernandez, a Venezuelan on TPS that allows her to stay in the United States until April 2025, burst into tears as her 2-year-old son slept in a stroller outside New York’s Roosevelt Hotel as migrants discussed election fallout Wednesday.
“Imagine if they end it,†she said.
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Salomon reported from Miami. AP reporter Cedar Attanasio contributed from New York.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A Texas appeals court ordered a new trial Wednesday for a Jewish man on death row — who was part of a gang of prisoners that fatally shot a police officer in 2000 after escaping — because of antisemitic bias by the judge who presided over his case.
Lawyers for Randy Halprin have contended that former Judge Vickers Cunningham in Dallas used racial slurs and antisemitic language to refer to him and some of his co-defendants.
Halprin, 47, was among the group of inmates known as the “ Texas 7,†who escaped from a South Texas prison in December 2000 and then committed numerous robberies, including the one in which they shot 29-year-old Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins 11 times, killing him.
By a vote of 6-3, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered that Halprin’s conviction be overturned and that he be given a new trial after concluding that Cunningham was biased against him at the time of his trial because he is Jewish.
The appeals court found evidence showed that during his life, Cunningham repeated unsupported antisemitic narratives. When Cunningham became a judge, he continued to use derogatory language about Jewish people outside the courtroom “with ‘great hatred, (and) disgust’ and increasing intensity as the years passed,†the court said.
It also said that during Halprin’s trial, Cunningham made offensive antisemitic remarks outside the courtroom about Halprin in particular and Jews in general.
“The uncontradicted evidence supports a finding that Cunningham formed an opinion about Halprin that derived from an extrajudicial factor — Cunningham’s poisonous antisemitism,†the appeals court wrote in its ruling.
The court previously halted Halprin’s execution in 2019.
“Today, the Court of Criminal Appeals took a step towards broader trust in the criminal law by throwing out a hopelessly tainted death judgment handed down by a bigoted and biased judge,†Tivon Schardl, one of Halprin’s attorneys, said in a statement. “It also reminded Texans that religious bigotry has no place in our courts.â€
The order for a new trial came after state District Judge Lela Mays in Dallas said in a December 2022 ruling that Cunningham did not or could not curb the influence of his antisemitic bias in his judicial decision-making during the trial.
Mays wrote that Cunningham used racist, homophobic and antisemitic slurs to refer to Halprin and the other escaped inmates.
Cunningham stepped down from the bench in 2005 and is now an attorney in private practice in Dallas. His office said Wednesday that he would not be commenting on Halprin’s case.
Cunningham previously denied allegations of bigotry after telling the Dallas Morning News in 2018 that he has a living trust that rewards his children for marrying straight, white Christians. He had opposed interracial marriages but later told the newspaper that his views evolved.
The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office was appointed to handle legal issues related to Halprin’s allegations after the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, was disqualified.
In September 2022, Tarrant County prosecutors filed court documents in which they said Halprin should get a new trial because Cunningham showed “actual bias†against him.
Of the seven inmates who escaped, one killed himself before the group was arrested. Four have been executed. Another, Patrick Murphy, awaits execution.
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Follow Juan A. Lozano on X at https://x.com/juanlozano70.
ANGELINA COUNTY — A Canadian national is in custody following an Angelina County traffic stop that led deputies to believe she was “engaging in multi-national arms smuggling.†According to our news partner KETK, deputies on patrol on US 59 near the north side of Lufkin witnessed a 2024 Toyota Corolla speeding and conducted a traffic stop on Wednesday evening. Officials identified the driver as a “Lyft ride sharing driver from Houston.†When speaking to the driver, deputies allegedly smelled a strong odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle and conducted a probable cause search for contraband.
Deputies reportedly located marijuana in the car and two large bags in the trunk. The Lyft customer, later identified as Canadian national Jahtaya O’Day Jah-Kiara Hamilton of Leamington, Ontario, stated the bags belong to her.
When officers opened the bags, a large quantity of handguns with a short barrel rifle, magazines and ammunition were found. Deputies determined there were 20 semi-automatic pistols. The sheriff’s office said a number of these pistols were reported stolen out of the Houston area. Read the rest of this entry »
Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Texas on Tuesday. Garcia won her fourth term in the Houston district. One of the first two Latinas to serve in Congress from Texas, the attorney was selected as one of the House impeachment managers in the first attempt to remove Donald Trump from office. She has advocated granting citizenship to migrants who were illegally brought into the United States as children. She serves on the Financial Services Committee and is the whip for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The Associated Press declared Garcia the winner at 11:19 p.m. EST.
Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Texas on Tuesday. De La Cruz, a Latina businesswoman, defended the newly drawn 15th Congressional District that stretches from San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley. She faced a rematch this year against her 2022 opponent, Democrat Michelle Vallejo. The Associated Press declared De La Cruz the winner at 11:45 p.m. EST.
Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Texas on Wednesday. Cuellar, a 10-term representative, is the top Democrat on the House appropriations subcommittee in charge of homeland security. Earlier this year, he was indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges over ties to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. The district spans a wide section of the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, including Cuellar’s hometown of Laredo, and includes a narrow strip that runs to San Antonio’s suburbs. He defeated Republican Jay Furman, a retired Navy commander. The Associated Press declared Cuellar the winner at 1:54 a.m. EST.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz of Texas won reelection Tuesday night as the GOP showed growing strength along the U.S.-Mexico border and continued chipping away at a region that has been a longtime stronghold for Democrats.
De La Cruz centered her campaign on border security to again win over the predominately Latino and working-class district that stretches from San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley. She was on pace to win by an even larger margin than she did in 2022 in what was a rematch with Democratic challenger Michelle Vallejo.
It was one of three closely watched House races on the Texas-Mexico border. Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, on the ballot for the first time since being indicted earlier this year, was reelected to his seat in a close race. Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez’s race remained too early to call early Wednesday.
Republicans have invested heavily into South Texas since several counties made significant shifts toward former President Donald Trump in 2020. Those gains continued this year, including Trump flipping Cameron County, one of the largest counties on the Texas border.
“Tonight we are witnessing incredible results, especially with Hispanics across the state of Texas, and we are seeing tonight generational change in South Texas,†Republican Sen. Ted Cruz told supporters after his victory over U.S. Rep. Colin Allred.
“Our Hispanic communities aren’t just leaving the Democratic Party, they are coming home to conservative values they never left,” Cruz said.
Trump was also in reach of potentially flipping Hidalgo County, which President Joe Biden had won by 17 percentage points, along with former Democratic strongholds Starr and Webb counties.
Congressman wins under indictment
Cuellar defeated political newcomer Jay Furman in an early test of the congressman’s political resilience following a May indictment on bribery charges.
Cuellar has deep roots in South Texas, serving the 28th Congressional District for nearly two decades. Republicans spent millions of dollars trying to unseat him in 2022 — the most competitive race of Cuellar’s career — but still lost by double-digits.
This time around, Cuellar’s biggest hurdle was maintaining support in the face of criminal charges. He and his wife were indicted for accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes for accepting money from an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. Cuellar has said he and his wife are innocent. In 2022, Cuellar had defeated his opponent by 13 percentage points, a much wider victory than his single-digit victory this time over Furman.
De La Cruz wins rematch
De La Cruz was the first Republican to win a congressional race in South Texas. The 15th Congressional District was one of two new seats awarded to Texas following the 2020 census, driven by the state’s booming Hispanic population, and was drawn by Republican mapmakers to give them an edge.
Vallejo’s campaign leaned into protecting Social Security and Medicare, which are popular programs among her primarily Latino and working-class base. De La Cruz has touted her support of tougher border security policies, including those backed by Trump.
Republicans hone in on the Rio Grande Valley
Republicans were also zeroing in on Gonzalez in a rematch with former Rep. Mayra Flores, who Republicans see as a rising star on the southern border.
Of the three border races in Texas, Republicans threw most of their muster behind their campaign to unseat Gonzalez, a moderate Democrat who defeated Flores by more than 8 percentage points in 2022 but was locked in a closer race this time.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had campaigned for Flores, who was the first Mexican-born woman elected to Congress and has outraised Gonzalez in a race that is one of the GOP’s biggest targets nationally. Flores previously held the seat after winning a special election earlier in 2022, under a map that was more favorable to Republicans.
Shifts in South Texas
Counties along the Texas-Mexico border made significant swings in 2020 toward Trump. The rightward shift represents a changing political landscape along the U.S.-Mexico border where border security has become a key issue for voters.
President Biden won Hidalgo County, a reliably blue district, by less than half the margin that Hillary Clinton did in 2016. In rural Zapata County, Trump flipped the county altogether after Clinton won it by 33 percentage points four years prior.
The gains have led to Republicans to invest millions of dollars into what were once considered deep blue districts.
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona voters have approved letting local police arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering the state from Mexico, an authority that would encroach on the federal government’s power over immigration enforcement but would not take effect immediately, if ever.
With the approval of Proposition 314, Arizona becomes the latest state to test the limits of what local authorities can do to curb illegal immigration. Within the past year, GOP lawmakers in Texas, Iowa and Oklahoma have passed immigration laws. In each case, federal courts have halted the states’ efforts to enforce them.
The only presidential battleground state that borders Mexico, Arizona is no stranger to a bitter divide on the politics of immigration. Since the early 2000s, frustration over federal enforcement of Arizona’s border with Mexico has inspired a movement to draw local police departments, which had traditionally left border duties to the federal government, into immigration enforcement.
The state Legislature approved an immigrant smuggling ban in 2005 that let then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio conduct immigration crackdowns, a 2007 prohibition on employers knowingly hiring people in the country illegally, and a landmark 2010 immigration law that required police, while enforcing other laws, to question the legal status of people suspected of being in the country without authorization.
Arizona voters have been asked to decide matters related to immigration before. They approved a 2004 law denying some government benefits to people in the country illegally and a 2006 law declaring English to be Arizona’s official language. They also rejected a 2008 proposal that would have made business-friendly revisions to the state law barring employers from hiring people who are in the country without authorization.
Arizona GOP lawmakers say the proposal was necessary to help secure the border, as they blamed the Biden administration for an unprecedented surge of illegal immigration. Record levels of illegal crossings have plummeted in recent months, following moves by the White House to tighten asylum restrictions.
Opponents of Proposition 314 argue it would harm Arizona’s economy and reputation, as well as lead to the racial profiling of Latinos. They cite the profiling Latinos endured when Arpaio led the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. In 2013, a federal judge ruled Latinos had been racially profiled in Arpaio’s traffic patrols that targeted immigrants, leading to a court-ordered overhaul of the agency that’s expected to cost taxpayers $314 million in legal and compliance costs by mid-summer 2025.
Kelli Hykes, who works in health policy and volunteers for Greg Whitten, the Democratic nominee in the race for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, said she thought carefully about how to vote on the immigration measure but declined to share her choice.
“It’s so polarizing, and there are folks in my family that are going to be voting one way and I’m voting another,†Hykes said.
Proposition 314 makes it a state crime for people to illegally enter Arizona from Mexico outside official ports of entry, permitting local and state law enforcement officers to arrest them and state judges to order their deportations. Those who enforce the law would be shielded from civil lawsuits.
These provisions, however, wouldn’t be enforceable immediately. A violator couldn’t be prosecuted until a similar law in Texas or another state has been in effect for 60 consecutive days.
The Arizona GOP lawmakers who voted to put the measure on the ballot were referring to Texas Senate Bill 4. The bill, signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in December, was supposed to allow local and state law enforcement to arrest people accused of entering Texas illegally from Mexico.
A federal appeals court put it on hold in March. The following month, a panel of federal judges heard from a Texas attorney defending the law and Justice Department attorneys arguing it encroached on the federal government’s authority over enforcing immigration law. The panel has yet to release its decision.
Other provisions of Proposition 314 aren’t contingent upon similar laws outside Arizona. The approval of the measure immediately makes selling fentanyl that results in a person’s death a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and a crime for noncitizens to submit false documentation when applying for employment or attempting to receive benefits from local, state and federal programs.
SMITH COUNTY — One person is dead following a deputy-involved shooting in Lindale. According to our news partner KETK, Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a threat call at a business in Lindale on Tuesday at around 12:50 p.m. The caller said Jonathan Layton had recently been terminated and had made threats that “he was going home and would return to the business to kill them.â€
Before officials arrived, Layton had left the business and a description of his vehicle was released. A responding deputy noticed the suspect vehicle headed south on US 69 prior to receiving the information. Officials attempted to contact Layton at the 13200 block of CR 4109 east of Lindale, and found his vehicle in the front yard of a residence.
“When deputies attempted to contact Layton at the residence, he turned around holding a handgun pointed in their direction. One of the deputies fired at Layton with his duty weapon incapacitating him,†Smith County officials said. Read the rest of this entry »
WINNSBORO — According to our news partner KETK, a traffic stop led to the arrest of a Winnsboro woman after officers found and seized methamphetamine, mushrooms and cannabis concentrate. The Winnsboro Police Department said officers conducted a traffic stop for speeding in the 900 block of Gilmer Road. The officer reportedly smelled marijuana coming from the car and the driver, Jamie Abbott, allegedly admitted to having narcotics inside the vehicle.
“Officer Hanner was able to recover over 20 grams of methamphetamine from the vehicle as well as psilocybin mushrooms, multiple controlled substance medications, THC wax and drug paraphernalia,†the police department said. Abbott was then arrested for possession of a controlled substance and taken to the Wood County Jail where she’s being held on a $25,000 bond.
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona voters are set to decide whether to let local police arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering the state from Mexico, an authority that would encroach on the federal government’s power over immigration enforcement but would not take effect immediately, if ever.
If Arizona voters approve Proposition 314, the state would become the latest to test the limits of what local authorities can do to curb illegal immigration. Within the past year, GOP lawmakers in Texas, Iowa and Oklahoma have passed immigration laws. In each case, federal courts have halted the states’ efforts to enforce them.
The only presidential battleground state that borders Mexico, Arizona is no stranger to a bitter divide on the politics of immigration. Since the early 2000s, frustration over federal enforcement of Arizona’s border with Mexico has inspired a movement to draw local police departments, which had traditionally left border duties to the federal government, into immigration enforcement.
The state Legislature approved an immigrant smuggling ban in 2005 that let then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio conduct immigration crackdowns, a 2007 prohibition on employers knowingly hiring people in the country illegally, and a landmark 2010 immigration law that required police, while enforcing other laws, to question the legal status of people suspected of being in the country without authorization.
Arizona voters have been asked to decide matters related to immigration before. They approved a 2004 law denying some government benefits to people in the country illegally and a 2006 law declaring English to be Arizona’s official language. They also rejected a 2008 proposal that would have made business-friendly revisions to the state law barring employers from hiring people who are in the country without authorization.
Arizona GOP lawmakers say the proposal is necessary to help secure the border, as they blame the Biden administration for an unprecedented surge of illegal immigration. Record levels of illegal crossings have plummeted in recent months, following moves by the White House to tighten asylum restrictions.
Opponents of Proposition 314 argue it would harm Arizona’s economy and reputation, as well as lead to the racial profiling of Latinos. They cite the profiling Latinos endured when Arpaio led the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. In 2013, a federal judge ruled Latinos had been racially profiled in Arpaio’s traffic patrols that targeted immigrants, leading to a court-ordered overhaul of the agency that’s expected to cost taxpayers $314 million in legal and compliance costs by mid-summer 2025.
Kelli Hykes, who works in health policy and volunteers for Greg Whitten, the Democratic nominee in the race for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, said she thought carefully about how to vote on the immigration measure but declined to share her choice.
“It’s so polarizing, and there are folks in my family that are going to be voting one way and I’m voting another,†Hykes said.
Proposition 314 would make it a state crime for people to illegally enter Arizona from Mexico outside official ports of entry, permitting local and state law enforcement officers to arrest them and state judges to order their deportations. Those who enforce the law would be shielded from civil lawsuits.
These provisions, however, wouldn’t be enforceable immediately. A violator couldn’t be prosecuted until a similar law in Texas or another state has been in effect for 60 consecutive days.
The Arizona GOP lawmakers who voted to put the measure on the ballot were referring to Texas Senate Bill 4. The bill, signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in December, was supposed to allow local and state law enforcement to arrest people accused of entering Texas illegally from Mexico.
A federal appeals court put it on hold in March. The following month, a panel of federal judges heard from a Texas attorney defending the law and Justice Department attorneys arguing it encroached on the federal government’s authority over enforcing immigration law. The panel has yet to release its decision.
Other provisions of Proposition 314 aren’t contingent upon similar laws outside Arizona. If voters approve the measure, it would immediately make selling fentanyl that results in a person’s death a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and a crime for noncitizens to submit false documentation when applying for employment or attempting to receive benefits from local, state and federal programs.
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Gabriel Sandoval is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Unable to keep up with the growing number of leaking and erupting wells in the state’s oil fields, the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, has asked lawmakers for an additional $100 million in emergency funding — which would be equal to about 44% of the agency’s entire two-year budget.
Danny Sorrell, the agency’s executive director, sent the letter two months after the commission filed its annual budget request in August, according to the Houston Chronicle. He said the agency’s $226 million budget request did not include enough money “to protect the groundwater and the environment†from increasingly common well blowouts.
The agency follows a rating system to determine which wells it needs to plug first, according to Texas law. Priority 1 wells are leaking wells that pose environmental, safety, or economic risks. An uncontrolled flow of water occurring at a well constitutes an emergency, said R.J. DeSilva, a spokesperson for the agency. In an emergency, agency staff “respond immediately to plug it,†he said.
The agency said that it addresses actively leaking wells regardless of whether it has enough money in the designated budget for well remediation, a practice that Sorrell said has become unsustainable and caused the agency to plug fewer non-emergency wells each year.
“These high-priority wells need to be taken care of before they themselves become emergency wells,†he said.
There are approximately 140,000 so-called orphaned wells in the U.S. and more than 9,000 of them are in Texas, according to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. These are abandoned wells that have been inactive for at least 12 months and have no clear ownership.
When left unattended, orphaned wells are prone to blowouts that spew contaminated water onto the surrounding land. Experts said the routine industry practice of injecting fracking wastewater — called produced water — into underground rock formations, contributes to the problem.
At least eight wells have leaked and burst since last October, Sarah Stogner, an oil and gas attorney, told the Texas Tribune earlier this month. Stogner has tracked such wells for years.
In December 2023, an abandoned well that blew out in Imperial, southwest of Odessa, took more than two months to plug. That well alone cost regulators $2.5 million to cap and clean up.
In October, another well in Toyah burst and released a torrent of water that took weeks to contain. Kinder Morgan, the energy firm that assumed responsibility for the well, did not say how much it cost to seal.
The briney water is laden with chemicals it collects underground, including hydrogen sulfide, a toxic and deadly gas.
Congress approved $4.7 billion to plug orphan wells on public and private lands as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021. Texas received $25 million of that money in 2022 and another $80 million in January.
The Railroad Commission used that money to plug 737 wells — 10% of the estimated orphaned wells in Texas. It also plugged 1,754 wells through an initiative funded by $63 million in state money.
The efforts have not been enough.
Sorrell’s letter to Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan said that regulators need the money to staff a team of inspectors who can investigate the cause of the blowouts, which they associate with produced water injections. Sorrells said the agency’s ability “to assess, characterize and evaluate these events is limited by the currently available resources.â€
Sorrells said the cost to plug wells, which includes labor and materials like cement and rigs, has increased by 36% since 2022.
Both oil and gas industry leaders and environmental advocates in Texas applauded the commission’s request.
“We have long supported increases in funding for the Commission in this and other areas,†said Ben Sheppard, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association. “We would support the Legislature going above and beyond the Commission’s request for plugging and remediation funding. The industry generates billions of dollars every year, and it seems appropriate that more of these dollars could be utilized for this important purpose.â€
Julie Range, a policy manager for Commission Shift, an oil and gas watchdog group, commended the agency’s request.
“We hope the investigation team will prompt the Railroad Commission to scrutinize their approval process and deny more injection wells that pressurize underground aquifers and cause many of these wells to reach emergency status,†she said.
For years, a growing chorus of experts and ranchers have warned the commission about the rising threat the wells pose to the environment and the region’s vulnerable groundwater resources.
In August, researchers at Southern Methodist University found a link between the common practice of injecting wastewater from fracking underground and the blowouts occurring across the oil-rich Permian Basin — a 75,000-square-mile region straddling West Texas and New Mexico.
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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some Republican-led states say they will block the Justice Department’s election monitors from going inside polling places on Election Day, pushing back on federal authorities’ decades-long practice of watching for violations of federal voting laws.
Officials in Florida and Texas have said they won’t allow federal election monitors into polling sites on Tuesday. And on Monday, Missouri filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to block federal officials from observing inside polling places. Texas followed with a similar lawsuit seeking to permanently bar federal monitoring of elections in the state.
The Justice Department announced last week that it’s deploying election monitors in 86 jurisdictions across 27 states on Election Day. The Justice Department declined to comment on the moves by the Republican-led states, but filed court papers urging the judge to deny Missouri’s request.
The race between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump is a dead heat, and both sides are bracing for potential legal challenges to vote tallies. The Justice Department’s election monitoring effort, a long practice under both Democratic and Republican administrations, is meant to ensure that federal voting rights are being followed.
Here’s a look at election monitors and the states’ actions:
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Who are the election monitors?
Election monitors are lawyers who work for the Justice Department, including in the civil rights division and U.S. attorney’s offices across the country. They are not law enforcement officers or federal agents.
For decades, the Justice Department’s civil rights division has sent attorneys and staff members to monitor polling places across the country in both federal and non-federal elections. The monitors are tasked with ensuring compliance with federal voting rights laws.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division enforces a number of statutes protecting the right to vote. That includes the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits intimidation and threats against those who are casting ballots or counting votes. And it includes the Americans with Disabilities Act, which mandates that election officials ensure people with disabilities have the full and equal opportunity to vote.
“The Department of Justice has a nearly 60-year history of addressing Election Day issues to safeguard the voting rights of Black citizens and other communities of color,” said Edward Casper, acting co-chief counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “While some recent efforts to interfere in this process may appear more bark than bite, they still pose a real threat to civil rights enforcement,†he said.
Where are election monitors being sent?
The 86 jurisdictions that the Justice Department will send monitors to on Tuesday include Maricopa County, Arizona and Fulton County, Georgia, which in 2020 became the center of election conspiracy theories spread by Trump and other Republicans. Another place on the list is Portage County, Ohio, where a sheriff came under fire for a social media post in which he said people with Harris yard signs should have their addresses recorded so that immigrants can be sent to live with them if the Democrat wins the presidency.
Other areas where federal monitors will be sent include Detroit; Queens, New York; Providence, Rhode Island; Jackson County, South Dakota; Salem, Massachusetts; Milwaukee; Manassas, Virginia; Cuyahoga County, Ohio; and Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska. The Justice Department’s monitors will be in St. Louis, four jurisdictions in Florida and eight jurisdictions in Texas.
What’s happening in Missouri?
In filing the lawsuit Monday, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said state law “clearly and specifically limits who may be in polling places.” He also accused the federal government of “attempting to illegally interfere in Missouri’s elections.â€
The lawsuit states that Missouri law “permits only certain categories of persons to be present in voting locations, including voters, minor children accompanying voters, poll workers, election judges, etc.” and not federal officials.
The Justice Department also sought to monitor polling places in Missouri in 2022. The agency planned to have officials at Cole County, which includes Jefferson City, the state capital. County Clerk Steve Korsmeyer said he wouldn’t let them in if they show up.
The federal agency backed down after Ashcroft showed Justice Department officials the state law, Ashcroft said. He says the Justice Department is now “trying to go through the back door” by contacting local election officials for access.
Messages were left Monday with the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners.
In court papers filed late Monday, the Justice Department said it has authority to conduct monitoring there under a settlement agreement with the St. Louis Board aimed at ensuring people with mobility and vision impairments can access polling places. The settlement was reached in 2021 under Trump’s Justice Department after federal officials found problems, such as ramps that were too steep and inaccessible parking, according to the court papers. The settlement, which expires next year, says the board must “cooperate fully†with Justice Department’s efforts to monitor compliance, “including but not limited to providing the United States with timely access to polling places (including on Election Day).â€
The Justice Department said an attorney and investigator from its Disability Rights Section are in St. Louis to inspect for accessibility issues Tuesday. The department has carried out such inspections under the settlement agreement on “multiple occasions,†including in the April local elections, government lawyers said in court documents.
What are the other states saying?
In a letter to the Justice Department on Friday, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said wrote, “Texas law is clear: Justice Department monitors are not permitted inside polling places where ballots are being cast or a central counting station where ballots are being counted.â€
“Texas has a robust processes and procedures in place to ensure that eligible voters may participate in a free and fair election,” Nelson wrote.
In a similar letter Friday, Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd told the Justice Department that Florida law lists who is allowed inside the state’s polling places and Justice Department officials are not included. Byrd said Florida is sending its own monitors to the four jurisdictions the Justice Department plans to send staff to and they will “ensure there is no interference with the voting process.â€
__ Associated Press writer Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee contributed reporting, Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.
FORT WORTH (AP) — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, sought to fend off an underdog challenge Tuesday from Democratic Rep. Colin Allred in one of the year’s most expensive races, which is testing shifts in America’s biggest red state and could factor into the fight for U.S. Senate control.
Allred, a three-term congressman from Dallas, was in an uphill battle against Cruz, who has urged Republicans to take the race seriously after only narrowly winning his last reelection in 2018. No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas in 30 years, the longest political losing streak of its kind in the U.S.
But shifting demographics in Texas — driven by a booming Hispanic population — and shrinking margins of victory for GOP candidates have sustained Democrats’ belief that victories are in reach. Those hopes left Democrats seeing Texas as one of their few pickup opportunities in a year when they were defending twice as many Senate seats as Republicans nationally.
Both candidates raised more than $160 million combined in the race.
Allred, who would become Texas’ first Black senator, has powered his upset bid by presenting himself as a moderate choice while mostly keeping political distance from Vice President Kamala Harris. That has not deterred Cruz from casting his opponent as politically likeminded with Harris, whose presidential campaign has not made an aggressive play to flip Texas.
Allred, 41, is a former NFL linebacker and civil rights attorney who has made abortion rights one of his top issues in a state that has one of the nation’s most-restrictive bans. He campaigned with Texas women who were hospitalized with serious pregnancy complications after the Texas ban took effect and has vowed to help restore the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion.
Cruz, who is seeking a third six-year term, has largely avoided the topic on the campaign trail while hammering Allred on the issues of immigration and policies that support transgender rights. He has called Allred out of touch with Texas, where Democrats control the state’s big cities but have been shut out of power statewide and at the Texas Capitol, where the GOP holds commanding majorities.
Allred hopes to take advantage of Texas’ shifting demographics, which along with the booming Hispanic population also includes an increase in the number of Black residents and people relocating from other states. He also has experience defeating a high-profile Republican incumbent, having entered Congress with a victory over Rep. Pete Sessions, who later successfully ran in a different district.
In the late stages of the race, Allred sought to tap into some of the Democratic enthusiasm around Harris at the top of the ticket, including appearing at a packed Houston rally with the vice president and superstar Beyoncé. Cruz spent the final week of the race rallying supporters in solidly GOP rural and suburban counties that have been key firewalls to Democratic gains in Texas.
AUSTIN (AP) — Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas faced his first election Tuesday since his indictment on bribery charges, one of three closely watched races along the U.S.-Mexico border where Republicans are trying to widen inroads in the predominately Hispanic region.
The election is another test for Democrats in a region that has historically been a stronghold and is a recurring backdrop in the national debate over immigration.
Cuellar and his wife have pleaded not guilty to charges related to the couple’s ties to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. Republicans mounted an aggressive campaign in 2022 to oust Cuellar, one of his party’s most outspoken moderates, but lost by double digits and pulled back in the district this year despite the indictment.
The border House districts are a competitive outlier in Texas, where Republicans have full control of the Legislature and a Democrat has not occupied a statewide office for more than 30 years.
Congressman running under indictment
Cuellar is running against Republican Jay Furman, a political newcomer and Navy veteran who is the incumbent’s first challenger since being indicted on bribery charges in May.
Cuellar and his wife are accused of accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. The charges have given Furman room to make his case in the 28th Congressional District, where Cuellar first took office in 2005.
However, the seat has drawn less attention this cycle from the GOP than in 2022, when a multimillion-dollar challenge still ended in a decisive Cuellar victory.
A rematch in a new Texas district
Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz is again trying to fend off a challenge from Democrat Michelle Vallejo after winning by 8 percentage points in 2022.
De La Cruz was the first Republican to win a congressional race in South Texas. The 15th Congressional District was one of two new seats awarded to Texas following the 2020 census, driven by the state’s booming Hispanic population, and was drawn by Republican mapmakers to give them an edge.
Vallejo’s campaign has leaned into protecting Social Security and Medicare, which are popular programs among her primarily Latino and working-class base. De La Cruz has touted her support of tougher border security policies, including those backed by former President Donald Trump.
Republicans hone in on the Rio Grande Valley
Republicans are zeroing in on Democratic Rep Vicente Gonzalez in a rematch with former Rep. Mayra Flores, who Republicans see as a rising star on the southern border.
Of the three border races in Texas, Republicans have thrown most of their muster behind their campaign to unseat Gonzalez, a moderate Democrat who defeated Flores by more than 8 percentage points in 2022.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has campaigned for Flores, who was the first Mexican-born woman elected to Congress and has outraised Gonzalez in a race that is one of the GOP’s biggest targets nationally. Flores previously held the seat after winning a special election earlier in 2022, under a map that was more favorable to Republicans.
Shifts in South Texas
Counties along the Texas-Mexico border made significant swings in 2020 toward Trump. The rightward shift represents a changing political landscape along the U.S.-Mexico border where border security has become a key issue for voters. President Biden won Hidalgo County, a reliably blue district, by less than half the margin that Hillary Clinton did in 2016. In rural Zapata County, Trump flipped the county altogether after Clinton won it by 33 percentage points four years prior.
The gains have led to Republicans to invest millions of dollars into what were once considered deep blue districts.
Democrats did, however, close the gap statewide in 2020 where Trump won Texas by less than 6 percentage points. It was the closest margin of victory for a GOP presidential nominee in Texas in decades.