Tag: Texas

Illegal Alien Sex Offender Released Despite Detainer Request, ICE Says

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Illegal alien sex offender in police custody

Connecticut law enforcement officials released an illegal alien convicted of sex crimes against a minor while ignoring a detainer request, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE agents apprehended a 27-year-old Ecuadorian national convicted of indecent assault and second degree assault of a Connecticut child earlier this month, the agency announced in a press release on Wednesday. The agency is faulting local officials for releasing the alien, despite an immigration detainer placed on him.

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Biden Admin Used Border Wall Funds on ‘Environmental Planning,’ Government Watchdog Says

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Joe Biden with CBP agents

The Biden administration spent taxpayer dollars meant to fund a border wall to pay for “environmental planning,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

At the request of Republican Reps. Jack Bergman of Michigan and Jodey Arrington of Texas, the GAO investigated whether the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) broke the law when it effectively blocked the use of taxpayer dollars to build a wall along the southern border. While GAO’s final report clears the DHS of breaking the law, it confirmed that DHS used congressionally-appropriated funds meant for the wall to pay for “environmental planning” and efforts “to remediate or mitigate environmental damage from past border wall construction.”

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Commentary: ATF Rule Change Creates a Trap for the Unwary

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A selection of modern firearms on a table

On Friday, the 31st anniversary of the massacre of Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, the ATF issued new regulations that make it more difficult to comply with federal laws regulating gun dealing and background checks.

Since the 1930s, federal law has required gun dealers to be registered as Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL). The requirements hinged on the meaning of “engaged in the business of” gun dealing. This language has always been ambiguous, and there has never been (even after the announcement of the new rules) a true “bright line” that distinguishes when one graduates from selling a few guns from one’s personal collection into full-fledged gun dealing.

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Illegals Instructed to Vote Biden for Border NGO to ‘Stay Open’

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Group photo of Resource Center Matamoros staff

An advocacy group based in Northeastern Mexico that lobbies U.S. lawmakers has distributed and posted flyers encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

Translated from Spanish, the Oversight Project notes, the flyers posted by the organization Resource Center Matamoros say: “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)

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Texas Republican Mike Olcott Corrects the Record After NewsChannel 5’s Phil Williams Falsely Claims His Vanquished Opponent, Glenn Rogers, Is a Conservative

Kaitlin Housler
Olcott Phil Williams

Mike Olcott, a Republican who won last month’s primary election for Texas House District 60, invalidated News Channel 5’s Phil Williams’ claims that his opponent he defeated in the race, State Representative Glenn Rogers, was defeated by “billionaire” pro-school voucher “forces.”

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Texas Farmers Ask Judge to Block USDA from Doling Out Disaster Aid Based on Race or Gender

Just the News
Texas Farmer in field

A group of white farmers in Texas is asking a federal judge to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from using race, gender or other “socially disadvantaged” traits to determine who gets disaster and pandemic farm aid and how much, arguing the agency’s current administration of eight emergency funding programs is unconstitutionally discriminatory.

“When natural disasters strike, they don’t discriminate based on race and sex. Neither should the Department of Agriculture,” the group of farmers wrote in a court filing made public Monday.

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Commentary: Is ‘The Great Illusion’ in Ruins?

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President Joe Biden

In 2021, Joe Biden was elected after a bitterly fought campaign that deposed the incumbent Donald Trump. Democrats eventually captured, for a time, both the House and Senate, ensuring the most left-wing government in modern American history.

Americans were then set to witness a great experiment. For the first time in their lives, a truly radical socialist program would supposedly fundamentally transform the way America dealt with the border, immigration, the economy, race relations, foreign policy, energy, law enforcement, crime, education, and social questions such as religion, gender, abortion, and schooling.

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Inflation, COVID-Era Spending Policies Result in Teacher Layoffs Nationwide

The Center Square
Teacher instructing students in classroom

School districts across the country are laying off teachers, citing high inflationary costs, budget deficits, and federal COVID-era funding running out after receiving windfalls in federal subsidies for three years.

The federal COVID-era subsidies were funded through ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) grants administered by state education agencies. Financed through the CARES Act and supplemental appropriations, the grant funding expires Sept. 30.

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‘Operation Rainmaker’ Arrests Result in Dozens Charged in Alleged Cartel-Affiliated Drug-Trafficking Ring

The Center Square
Seized Drugs

Agents arrested 23 people in relation to a cartel-linked drug operation in Texas that dealt in cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and meth. 

The arrests came after a five-year investigation that started in 2019. Prosecutors said the drug ring operated in the Houston and Galveston areas and was under the control of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

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Analysis: Data Shows Most Migrant Flights Landing in Gov. DeSantis’ Sunshine State

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Illegal Immigrant Flights

President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refuses to publicly identify the dozens of U.S. international airports for which it has approved direct flights from abroad for certain inadmissible aliens. At least 386,000 migrants through February have been allowed to fly to interior U.S. airports as part of a legally dubious admissions program the administration launched in October 2022. The rationale for the program is to “reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully” over the southern border — by flying them over it directly into the interior and then releasing them on parole.

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More than 100 Sheriffs Express Support for Operation Lone Star

The Center Square
Sheriffs with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

More than 100 sheriffs in Texas expressed support for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security effort, Operation Lone Star. They also are calling for the border crisis to be declared a “United States constitutional crisis and crimes against humanity.”

In a letter to the governor, the sheriffs “respectfully request that our Texas border be immediately secured by any lawful means.”

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Energy Secretary Insists Energy Stockpiles Will Be Refilled in 2024, but Experts are Skeptical

Just the News
Secretary Jennifer Granholm

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Monday that the nation’s energy stockpiles, which President Joe Biden depleted to its lowest level since the 1980s, will be refilled by the end of 2024.

“By the end of this year we will essentially be back to where we would have been absent the sales,” Granholm said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, Texas, according to AFP.

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Texas Schools Pull $8.5 Billion from BlackRock over ESG

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Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey

The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) is pulling $8.5 billion from the investment firm BlackRock over its use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.

The board informed the investment firm that it was being terminated as the manager of the Navarro 1 Fund in a Tuesday letter, which it provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The divestment represents the largest from the private firm, according to Fox Business Network.

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Border Crisis: Water Scarcity Forces Texas’ Last Sugar Mill to Close

The Center Square
Sugar Cane Farmer

The border crisis has taken on many forms in Texas, from crime to fentanyl poisonings to farmers and ranchers losing their livelihoods.

Another casualty of the border crisis is the U.S. State Department’s failure to hold accountable Mexican government authorities to a 1944 Treaty of Utilization of Waters, resulting in Texas’ last sugar mill shut down, the industry contends. The Rio Grande Valley is bracing for an expected initial $100 million in economic losses as a result.

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Super Tuesday Election Problems: Ballot Scanners, Voter Check-Ins, Wrong Redistricting Information

Just the News
Vote Line

Numerous election issues occurred in multiple counties throughout the U.S. on Super Tuesday – from malfunctioning ballot scanners to voters having problems checking in at polling stations and being directed to the wrong station.

Counties in Alabama, California, Texas and Utah all experienced problems, resulting in some voters leaving polling sites without casting a ballot.

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Federal Judge Blocks Texas Law That Would Allow Law Enforcement to Arrest Illegal Migrants

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Illegal Immigrants

A federal judge blocked a Texas law Thursday that allows local police to arrest migrants who cross into the state illegally.

U.S. District Court Judge David Alan Ezra, a Reagan appointee, said in a 114-page ruling that the law, SB 4, “threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice.” He issued a preliminary injunction preventing the law from taking effect while the case proceeds, finding Texas was “unlikely to succeed on the merits” and noting the government would “suffer grave irreparable harm” if the law took effect.

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A Nation Enriched by Legal Immigrants Now Buckles from Weight of Illegal Border Crossers and their Crimes

Just the News

A nursing student bludgeoned to death near a tranquil Georgia college campus. A developmentally disabled person raped in Boston. A mother and son killed in a head-on crash in Colorado. New York’s finest assaulted in the heralded Times Square.

The roll-call of victims violated by Joe Biden’s border policies is rising as fast as the hotel and welfare tabs for sanctuary cities, thrusting an American society that long revered its immigrant heritage into a crisis of epic proportions driven by more than 8 million illegal border crossers since the 46th president took office.

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U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty Travels to the U.S.-Mexico Border

Kaitlin Housler
Senator Bill Hagerty at Southern Border

Tennessee U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday with Tennessee sheriffs and mayors to meet with law enforcement and property owners.

“I’m back at the southern border here in Texas,” Hagerty said in a video message posted to X. “We’re just in the outskirts of Eagle Pass right now. I brought another delegation of sheriffs and mayors and law enforcement from Tennessee just like I did two years ago. What we’re seeing is even worse than it was two year ago.”

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Greg Abbott: Texas Set to Build More Border Wall than Trump

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Greg Abbott

On Thursday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) claimed that the state of Texas is on track to build more wall along the southern border than was constructed during President Donald Trump’s first term.

As the New York Post reports, Abbott made his remarks during a press conference in Shelby Park, the territory that Texas state authorities seized from the Border Patrol and other federal agencies following Abbott’s declaration of an invasion.

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Border Czar Banks: Texas’ Successful Efforts Push Illegal Entry West

The Center Square
Texas State 'Border Czar' Mike Banks

by Bethany Blankley   One year in as Texas’ “border czar,” Mike Banks says the state has been so successful at blocking illegal entry that cartel activity has been pushed west into Democratic-led states that aren’t implementing similar tactics that Texas has. Banks spoke with The Center Square in an exclusive interview after reaching the one-year mark in his new role on Jan. 30. Gov. Greg Abbott tapped him for the role within 24 hours of his retirement from U.S. Border Patrol, creating his position to oversee and augment border security efforts already underway through Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star. Abbott created the state “border czar” role after President Joe Biden declared Vice President Kamala Harris “border czar,” saying she’d be overseeing border security operations. Harris has been absent from the border, even denying there is a crisis. Abbott has argued Banks has done more in one day than Harris did in the years she’s held the title. Banks was “the perfect choice” to be Texas’ first-ever border czar, Abbott argues, because of his 23 years of Border Patrol experience serving in three states and Washington, D.C., under four presidents. He’s “seen firsthand the struggles of ranchers and…

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Tennessee Attorney General Joins Letter Supporting Texas’ Border Defense Barriers

Kaitlin Housler
Skrmetti Border

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a coalition of 26 other attorneys general in sending a letter to the Biden administration proclaiming support for the steps Texas has taken at its border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigrant crossings.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the Biden administration to allow Border Patrol agents to cut through or move razor wire Texas installed on its border with Mexico to prevent illegal entries into the U.S.

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Former Arizona AG: States Have Constitutional Right to Self-Defense

The Center Square
Brnovich State Rights

Former Republican Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich again on Tuesday argued the constitutional authority given to states for self-defense.

Brnovich testified at a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing addressing the issue after being the first and only state attorney general to issue a formal legal opinion that defines an invasion and lays out the constitutional authority of states’ self-defense.

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George Soros Invests Millions in Flipping Texas Blue

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Soros Texas

The far-left billionaire George Soros has donated millions of dollars to various campaigns and political organizations in an effort to flip the second-most populous state in the United States to Democratic control.

According to Fox News, Soros has already given more than $3 million to five left-wing groups in the state of Texas in the last year alone, in an effort to increase ground game for Democratic candidates in the traditionally Republican state.

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Analysis: Residents from Other States Defend Texas as They Did Nearly 200 Years Ago

The Center Square

by Bethany Blankley   As the battle between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and President Joe Biden continues over state sovereignty and Texas’ constitutional right to defend its border, the leaders and residents of 25 states have come to Texas’ aid, as others did from 22 states nearly 190 years ago. Answering Abbott’s call to join forces to secure the Texas-Mexico border last May, 24 Republican governors pledged support, sending National Guard troops and law enforcement officers from their states to Texas. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Texas allowing Border Patrol agents to destroy concertina wire barriers in Eagle Pass, Texas, erected through Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, a coalition of now 25 governors expressed even greater resolve to “stand with Texas.” Within the past few days, at least 10 governors have sent more troops to Texas, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem visited to rally support for Texas troops. As calls have grown for Biden to federalize the Texas National Guard to pull them out of the chain of command of Abbott, a constitutional law expert and former active-duty Navy JAG told The Center Square that Congress should determine if such a move would constitute an impeachable offense. If the president…

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Leahy Tells Bannon Texas Gov. Abbott’s Response to Supreme Court’s Decision on Border Wire Sounds a Lot Like Andrew Jackson

Kaitlin Housler
MLP

Editor-in-Chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star Michael Patrick Leahy joined Steve Bannon’s War Room on Wednesday to discuss Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s response to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in favor of the Biden administration, which allows Border Patrol agents to cut through or move razor wire the state installed on its border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing.

In a statement released Wednesday, Abbott argued President Joe Biden has “refused to enforce” current federal laws protecting states, “including immigration laws on the books right now.”

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Gov. Bill Lee Supports Gov. Greg Abbott in Southern Border Standoff: ‘Tennessee Has Always Stood With Texas’

Tom Pappert

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee confirmed on Thursday that he supports Texas Governor Greg Abbott in his standoff with the Biden administration over Texas’ defense of its southern border.

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had the authority to remove border defenses erected by Texas to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing the southern border, Abbott invoked the state’s right to self defense on Wednesday, declaring the Biden administration failed in its duty to protect the country and President Joe Biden “violated his oath to faithfully executive immigration laws enacted by Congress.”

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Southern States Are Growing While The Northeast Shrinks

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New Home

Over the past few years, states in the American South have come to economically surpass the Northeast, owing to policies like lower taxes and better business environments spurring prosperity and population growth, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The gross domestic product of Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee surpassed the cumulative economy of the Northeast in 2020 for the first time since data has been tracked and has continued to exceed growth since, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis compiled by Bloomberg. The growth comes as businesses and people flock to the region seeking affordability, job opportunities, lighter tax and regulation laws and freedom from dense urban areas, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF.

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SCOTUS Sides with Open Borders Biden Admin, Clears the Way for Feds to Remove Razor Wire Barrier in Eagle Pass, Texas

The Center Square

A divided U.S. Supreme Court sided with President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday, clearing the way for federal authorities to remove razor wire installed in Eagle Pass along the U.S.-Mexico border by Texas law enforcement. 

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to vacate an appeals court ruling that allowed the wire to stay in place as the case played out. Chief Justice John Roberts led the majority with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

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Commentary: Combating the Federal Government’s Determination to Allow a Border Invasion

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Illegal Immigration

The invasion of illegal aliens on our southern border is getting worse by the day. Texas is at the forefront of this problem, comprising almost half of the nation’s border with Mexico. After years of failure by the Obama and Biden administrations, our state has finally decided to act to protect our citizens.

A new law was signed by the governor, making illegal immigration a state crime and empowering local and state law enforcement to carry out this new law. This should have happened years ago. The border crisis is not new. Inaction by the governor has continued to allow illegal aliens, including documented terrorists, into our state.

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Border Patrol Agents Quietly Support Texas’ Move to Seize Area of Border

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Border Patrol agents are quietly applauding Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s effort to seize property along the border, several of them told the Daily Caller News Foundation on the condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak publicly.

The Texas Department of Public Safety seized the property of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, the city’s mayor, Rolando Salinas, said in a statement posted to Facebook Thursday. The Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a Supreme Court filing hours after the decision that Texas National Guardsmen are blocking the Border Patrol from accessing the area, where they have a staging area and boat ramp.

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Three More Texas Counties Declare Invasion, Bringing Total to 50

The Center Square

Three years into the border crisis, 50 Texas counties have now declared an invasion.

The latest to do so are the judges and commissioners of Bandera, Schleicher and Uvalde counties. Officials in Bandera and Schleicher counties signed nearly identical resolutions in November as Crockett County’s. Crockett County declared an invasion after its county judge’s family members were killed by an alleged human smuggler. Uvalde County officials signed their invasion resolution in July, when they also joined a coalition led by Atascosa County Judge Weston Cude.

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Commentary: Post-Election Audits Should Be the Norm for Every State

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I may be dating myself, but the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

We can get much more than an ounce’s worth of prevention by engaging in post-election process audits. It is much easier to fix process problems early before they blow up and become problems that require litigation and other nasty fixes. Ahead of the 2024 election, state legislatures should require full process audits to ensure transparency and build trust in our elections.

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DOJ Sues Texas to Prevent State from Arresting Migrants Who Enter Illegally

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Illegal Immigrants

The Biden administration is suing Texas to prevent the state from arresting migrants who flout U.S. immigration law to enter the state illegally, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday.

The DOJ is making good on its threat to sue Texas over enforcing S.B. 4, a new law signed in December 2023 that would permit local and state authorities to arrest and prosecute individuals suspected of entering the U.S. illegally, according to the DOJ and NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. Texas Illegal immigration has surged to record levels under the Biden administration, with Texas seeing a massive influx of migrants arriving at its border with Mexico.

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Biden’s Security Policies Raise Fears of Global Economic Meltdown as Commerce Halted by Unrest

Just the News

The Biden administration’s security policies are raising the risk of a global economic crisis as Iran’s backing of the Houthi rebels threatens to shut down international shipping while closures at the U.S.-Mexico border prompted by illegal immigration are costing billions of dollars in trade. 

The Biden administration “continues to try to make nice with this regime that has been chanting ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ for more than 40 years,” former Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates, currently a Heritage Foundation national security expert, told the Just the News, No Noise television show last week about the White House’s relationship with Iran.

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Officials Suspend Railroad Crossings at Two Key International Ports of Entry in Texas

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On Sunday night, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced it was closing international railroad bridges at two major ports of entry in Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, after a surge of over 4,000 people illegally entered over the last 48 hours. 

CBP reported that agents apprehended nearly 3,000 illegal foreign nationals on Saturday and Sunday in the Eagle Pass area alone. Groups of 400 came through at a time, undeterred by border barriers erected by Gov. Greg Abbott through Operation Lone Star. Without OLS, little to no law enforcement presence would exist in the region, officials have explained, because Border Patrol agents have been tasked with processing people to release them into the country. 

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ICE Agents Continue to Remove Dangerous Criminals Wanted in Their Home Countries

The Center Square

Federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement- Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE-ERO) continue to remove violent criminals wanted in their home countries after they’ve fled to the U.S. to avoid going to prison.

In south Texas in the Rio Grande Valley, ICE ERO-Harlingen agents removed a Salvadoran national wanted by El Salvadoran authorities for human smuggling and illicit association.

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Texas, Florida Troopers Apprehend More Human Smugglers in Border Communities

The Center Square

Texas and Florida state troopers, as well as sheriff’s deputies, continue to apprehend human smugglers in the small border community of Brackettville, in Kinney County, Texas.

A Texas DPS trooper, assisted by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, recently conducted a traffic stop in Brackettville, which led to a human smuggling bust.

The stop occurred at night in a residential neighborhood when a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and FHP trooper pulled over the driver of a Chevrolet Camaro.

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