ADVERTISEMENT 2
ADVERTISEMENT 3
Error: No articles to display
ADVERTISEMENT 1
ADVERTISEMENT 4
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) —
A Mexican businessman again faces up to 20 years in a U.S. prison for helping drug lords launder money through horse racing operations.
Francisco Colorado Cessa was convicted Thursday during his federal retrial in Austin. Attorneys for Colorado say they will appeal his latest conviction on conspiracy to commit money laundering.
An appeals court in May reversed Colorado's 2013 conviction and 20-year sentence on the same charge.
Prosecutors say Colorado spent nearly $25 million to buy and sell hundreds of racehorses in Texas and Oklahoma to launder drug money. The 55-year-old Colorado said he used legitimate funds and feared Mexican drug lords would kill him if he didn't cooperate.
Colorado in 2014 pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe a judge in Austin to seek a lesser prison term.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) —
Concealed handguns would be prohibited among students in University of Texas dorms — but allowed in classrooms — under recommendations given to the school president Thursday in preparation for the state's new campus-carry law.
The law taking effect in August requires public universities to designate specific areas where people with concealed handgun permits can carry their weapons. Lawmakers approved the law despite strong opposition from students, faculty and University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven, the former head of U.S. Special Operations Command who directed the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.
McRaven has said the law would make campuses less safe.
The recommendations, compiled by a working group of faculty, students and others, still need to be reviewed by University of Texas-Austin President Greg Fenves and sent to the Board of Regents for approval.
Fenves said Thursday that he had "deep concerns" about the law and its impact on campus safety.
"I will study the report closely and decide on our policy in the near future," he said. "I have a responsibility to implement the law and will do so in a way that addresses the safety of our community."
The working group, which included some gun owners and concealed-carry license holders, released a statement saying all members agreed with the "overwhelming sentiment on campus" to keep guns out of classrooms, but that they ultimately decided to allow it. University law professor Steve Goode, who led the group, said banning guns from classrooms would be considered a blanket ban specifically prohibited by the new law.
"Keeping them out of on-campus residence halls is a tiny sliver of our population. Classrooms affect 50,000 students," Goode said.
In banning guns from dorms, the working group noted that most residents are under 21, the minimum age to get a concealed handgun permit. But visiting parents with permits would be allowed to carry. The recommendations also suggest banning guns from campus health centers, child care facilities, certain laboratories and activities involving children.
License holders would have to keep guns in a holster. The panel decided against requiring that guns be kept in lockers, saying that increased the chance of accidental discharge.
State law already bans guns from college sporting events.
The flagship campuses of the Texas A&M and Texas Tech university systems have not yet released proposed gun zones. Private universities are allowed to maintain their bans under the law, which lawmakers approved in May.
Gun-Free UT, a group of students, faculty and staff that has vigorously opposed guns on campus, said allowing weapons in classroom would create a threatening atmosphere and chill free speech in academics.
"The purpose of the university is education and the creation of new knowledge," the group said in a statement. "Guns will inevitably make their way into inappropriate locations and will be impossible to control."
Advocates of the law also criticized the recommendations. Students for Concealed Carry complained that a requirement that semiautomatic weapons not have a chambered round of ammunition "flies in the face of accepted best practices taught by every shooting school, police academy and military branch" in the country.
Campus carry advocates insist the right to have weapons falls under the Second Amendment, and they call it a critical self-defense measure.
Opponents and supporters cite the 1966 mass shooting at the University of Texas, when Charles Whitman killed 16 people and wounded dozens more from his perch atop the campus clock tower.
Texas is among eight states with provisions allowing concealed weapons on public postsecondary campuses, along with Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin.
SAN DIEGO (AP) —
The federal government on Thursday began collecting facial and eye scans of foreigners entering the U.S. at a busy border crossing with Mexico, a first step in one of its most ambitious efforts to track people who stay in the country illegally after their visas expire.
Up to half of the people in the U.S. illegally are believed to have overstayed their visas, but the absence of a checkout system has left authorities with no way to identify them.
In a push to change that, Customs and Border Protection began scanning foreigners entering on foot at San Diego's Otay Mesa port of entry. In February, it will start collecting the same information on foreigners walking into Mexico through the checkpoint.
The trial run, which lasts through June, will help determine if authorities expand screening to foreigners at all land crossings on the 1,954-mile border with Mexico. Authorities will look at the accuracy of the cameras.
Congress has long demanded biometric screening such as fingerprints, facial images or eye scans from people leaving the country, but the task poses enormous financial and logistical challenges, especially at land crossings.
On Thursday, foreigners put their travel documents on a plate at one of the San Diego crossing's six kiosks and looked into a camera positioned at arms' length. The process took less than a minute. Then, they walked a few steps to a border inspector for questioning.
"It's very fast, not inconvenient in the least," said Rosendo Hernandez of Tijuana, who was on a trip to buy tools.
The government has not announced details on how faces and eyes will be scanned when foreigners leave the country, but an official said most won't have to stop walking. Scanners will read chip-enabled travel documents at a distance and match the information to entry records.
"It's basically to verify that the same person that came to the United States is the same person that's exiting the United States," said Joe Misenhelter, assistant director at Otay Mesa, the nation's fourth-busiest port of entry last year.
Starting in February, U.S. citizens heading to Mexico on foot will use a separate lane at the California crossing with scanners that collect biographic information, including name and birth date, but not biometrics, Misenhelter said. They won't have to stop if their travel documents are chip-enabled.
Marc Rosenblum, deputy director for U.S. immigration policy at the Migration Policy Institute, said the effort aims to fix "the biggest deficiency in the whole system."
"It's a huge deal," Rosenblum said. "What they likely hope is this could be a fast exit check that won't be terribly expensive or time-consuming to implement."
Biometric screening has raised objections from privacy advocates who worry authorities may misuse the information or make it vulnerable to identity theft. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said facial and eye scans may open the door for countries to do the same on American visitors.
Screening also has fueled concerns among businesses and travelers who fear bottlenecks at already congested crossings.
"We have historically controlled our borders coming in but not out," said Jim Williams, a former Department of Homeland Security official who oversaw efforts to introduce biometric screening at border crossings from 2003 to 2006. "It's been a lack of infrastructure and lack of investment."
A 2006 study by the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that between 40 percent and 50 percent of people in the country illegally overstayed their visas — a figure that is generally accepted by immigration experts but notoriously difficult to pin down.
Between 7,000 and 8,000 pedestrians cross at Otay Mesa daily from Tijuana, and slightly less than half of them are U.S. citizens, Misenhelter said. Several had no objections to being scanned.
Marta Alicia Castillo of Ensenada, Mexico, who was headed to a casino, said it was seamless but that Americans should acknowledge that Mexico has the right to demand similar information from visitors if it chooses.
"If you're visiting a foreign country, they set the rules and you have to obey them," she said.