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Associated Press
DALLAS— Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is vowing to help defend North Carolina's law on transgender restrooms — and hinting that a similar measure could be coming soon to his state.
The U.S. Justice Department is suing North Carolina over its new law requiring transgender people to use public bathrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificates. Texas Republicans have used the issue to delight conservatives, even though legislative action isn't likely until state lawmakers reconvene in January.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants the Fort Worth school district superintendent to resign over guidelines to accommodate transgender students.
Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas— University of Texas System regents have postponed until July a vote on proposed rules allowing concealed handguns in campus buildings due to concerns that some might be too restrictive.
State law requires public universities to allow concealed handguns in classrooms and buildings starting Aug. 1.
The most controversial proposals have been for the flagship campus in Austin. They would allow professors to ban weapons from their offices. The school also wants to prohibit semi-automatic weapons from having a bullet in the chamber as a safety measure to avoid accidental discharge.
Those provisions have been attacked by gun-rights groups, which say the law is a key Second Amendment and self-defense measure. The Texas A&M System approved gun rules for its campuses in April
Associated Press
Texas' attorney general has asked an appeals court to throw out criminal charges against him at a Dallas hearing just blocks from the state Republican convention.
Attorney General Ken Paxton returned to court Thursday on felony charges of defrauding investors. The alleged fraud happened before Paxton was elected in 2014.
His lawyers say the fact that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently had his criminal charges dismissed before trial is helping their efforts to also prevent Paxton's case from going to a jury.
Paxton has pleaded not guilty and released a defiant video Wednesday reiterating he's "not going anywhere."
Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas -- Voters in Austin have decided that fingerprinting drivers for ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft must continue.
Saturday's vote defeated a proposal that would have repealed a February ordinance that says drivers must complete fingerprint-based background checks.
Uber and Lyft lobbied hard against the measure and threatened to pull out of Texas' capital city if the security condition was not repealed.
The manager of Uber Austin, Chris Nakutis, says company officials are disappointed with the voting results and hope the Austin City Council will reconsider the ordinance.
Associated Press
McKINNEY, Texas -- Voters in a North Texas school district have approved a bond issue that includes $50 million to build a 12,000-seat high school football stadium.
Saturday's vote came on a $220 million bond issue for the McKinney Independent School District, which is about 20 miles north of Dallas.
More than $11 million left from a 2000 bond election in the district will help fund site preparation, infrastructure upgrades and other work.
McKinney had just one high school in 1962 when the district built its current 7,000-seat stadium. The district, one of the fastest-growing in Texas, now has more than 24,500 students.
Officials say the district's three high schools will play their games at the planned stadium, which would also have a conference area for teacher training, banquets and other events.
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Questions arose on both sides of the border about the decision to relocate convicted drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to a region that is one of his cartel's strongholds, and a Mexican security official acknowledged Sunday that the sudden transfer was to a less-secure prison.
The official said that in general the Cefereso No. 9 prison on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, is not as impregnable as the maximum-security Altiplano facility near Mexico City where he had been held. The official wasn't authorized to discuss Guzman's case publicly and agreed to do so only if not quoted by name.
The official said, however, that Guzman is being held in a maximum-security wing where the same protocols are being enforced as in Altiplano, including 24-hour monitoring via a camera in his cell.
But Michael Vigil, the former head of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, wondered at the logic of sending Guzman to a lesser lockup in territory firmly controlled by his Sinaloa cartel underlings.
"It just doesn't make any sense," Vigil said. "He has that part of his empire, he has the infrastructure there and he has people who would assist him in terms of engineering him another escape."
Officials have not said why they chose Cefereso No. 9 over the 19 other options in the federal penitentiary system for Guzman's surprise, pre-dawn transfer in a high-security operation Saturday.
Some Mexican media have speculated it was a prelude to imminent extradition to the U.S., where he faces drug charges in seven jurisdictions. But authorities denied that.
The security official said Guzman is still in the middle of the extradition process. The Foreign Relations Department has the final say, and Guzman's lawyers still have opportunities to appeal.
A lawyer for Guzman confirmed Saturday that his defense continues to fight the drug lord being sent to the U.S., and officials have said it could take up to a year to reach a final ruling.
Multiple analysts told The Associated Press that there was no sign of a link between the prison switch and extradition.
"In the past, when they're going to extradite people, they just put them on a plane and they just fly them into the United States," Vigil said. "They don't pre-position people. ... He was not pre-positioned in Juarez to get kicked across the border.
Altiplano is considered the country's highest-security prison, and many had thought it to be unescapable. That belief was shattered in July 2015 when Guzman fled the facility through a sophisticated, mile-long tunnel that accomplices dug to the shower in his cell, complete with a motorcycle modified to run on rails laid down in the passage.
Cefereso No. 9 is just off the Pan-American highway about 14 miles (23 kilometers) south of downtown Juarez, in the middle of the barren, scorching Chihuahuan Desert. Other than a university campus about 2 miles (3 kilometers) to the east, there is hardly anything else for miles in any direction.
Gov. Cesar Duarte of Chihuahua state, where Juarez is, bragged about the facility's ability to hold Guzman, saying at a news conference that the transfer posed no risk for his state and was a sign of its improvements on security matters.
"There will be no escape," Duarte told local media. "If he was brought here from Altiplano it's because the security conditions are way above those of Altiplano, that's what the federal government settled on."
Authorities said the move was due to security upgrades at Altiplano and also part of a routine policy to rotate inmates for security reasons. Analysts said officials may also have wanted to shake up his confinement to thwart any escape plans that could have been in the works.
Vigil said it would be a mistake to try to hold Guzman in the Juarez prison for long.
"If they keep him there for a prolonged period of time, the Mexican government certainly is risking that he escapes," Vigil said. "And if he escapes, it would just completely decimate the credibility of the Mexican government."
According to a 2015 report by the governmental National Human Rights Commission, Cefereso No. 9 got the lowest overall quality rating for any of Mexico's 21 federal prisons at 6.63 on a scale of 0 to 10. Altiplano was the 10th best, with a rating of 7.32.
Cefereso No. 9 got low marks for guaranteeing a "dignified" stay and for handling inmates with special requirements. It got middling scores for guaranteeing prisoners' safety and well-being, and for rehabilitation.
It was also listed as somewhat overcrowded, with 1,012 inmates living in a facility designed to hold 848. Authorities acknowledge overcrowding is a widespread problem throughout Mexico's penitentiary system.
Overall, Cefereso No. 9 got a "yellow" evaluation for 2015 on the report's stoplight-style rating system. That was improved from "red" in 2014, even if its numerical score was still the country's lowest.
"Governability" was the only area where the prison received a "green," or good, rating. Altiplano also got a "green" rating for the category.
"El Chapo" first broke out of prison in 2001 and spent more than a decade on the run, becoming one of the world's most-wanted fugitives. He was recaptured in 2014, only to escape the following year. Mexican marines re-arrested him in the western state of Sinaloa in January, after he fled a safe house through a storm drain.
Guzman was returned to Altiplano, where officials beefed up his security regimen. He was placed under constant observation from a ceiling camera with no blind spots, and the floors of top-security cells were reinforced with metal bars and a 16-inch (40-centimeter) layer of concrete. Prison authorities also restricted his visits.
Associated Press
DRIPPING SPRING, Texas -- Five people are dead following a two-car crash on a rainy Texas highway on Mother's Day.
The Texas Department of Public Safety tells the Austin American-Statesman it happened Sunday afternoon near the town of Dripping Springs, about 20 miles southwest of Austin.
Officials say a Lincoln was heading east on U.S. 290 when the driver lost control and veered into the westbound lane, where it was hit by a Buick. Authorities say two people in the Buick and three people in the Lincoln were killed.
Austin's KXAN-TV reports one person in each car survived the crash. Both have been hospitalized.
Authorities haven't said what caused the accident.
SAN ANTONIO — A fugitive Salvadoran gang member wanted for violent crimes in his home country was deported Tuesday by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
This removal is the latest result of stepped-up collaborative efforts to locate Salvadoran criminal fugitives in the United States and return them to El Salvador to face justice.
Aristides Inoc Juarez-Villalobos, 21, an MS-13 gang member, was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice for various violent crimes ranging from extortion to illegally moving firearms. According to authorities, the weapons allegation resulted when a meeting was scheduled to execute a citizen of Juarez-Villalobos’s hometown area of Chinameca y Lolotique del Departamento de San Miguel.
"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to focus its resources on removing violent criminals and other high-priority aliens who pose the greatest threat to our communities," said Enrique M. Lucero, field office director of ERO San Antonio. "This latest removal ensures that this individual will face justice for the criminal allegations against him."
Juarez-Villalobos was encountered Jan. 26, 2015, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) near Carrizo Springs, Texas, after he illegally entered the United States. On Feb. 4, 2015, he was transferred to the South Texas Detention Complex, in Pearsall, Texas, to await his deportation. On Nov. 19, 2015, an immigration judge issued him a final order of removal. On March 8, 2016, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissed Juarez-Villalobos’s appeal and affirmed the judge’s decision to deport him back to El Salvador.
ERO officers removed Juarez-Villalobos April 12 via an ICE Air charter flight from Laredo, Texas, to San Salvador, El Salvador, where he was turned over to Salvadoran authorities.
This removal was part of ERO’s Security Alliance for Fugitive Enforcement (SAFE) Initiative. The SAFE Initiative is geared toward the identification of foreign fugitives who are wanted abroad and removable under U.S. immigration law.
In just four years, through the SAFE Initiative, ERO has removed more than 630 criminal fugitives to El Salvador. Those removed as part of the SAFE Initiative have been deemed ineligible to remain in the United States and were all wanted by El Salvador’s National Police Force.
SAFE aligns with ERO’s public safety priorities and eliminates the need for formal extradition requests.
Since Oct. 1, 2009, ERO has removed more than 1,150 foreign fugitives from the United States who were sought in their native countries for serious crimes, including kidnapping, rape and murder. ERO works with the ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Office of International Operations, foreign consular offices in the United States, and Interpol to identify foreign fugitives illegally present in the United States. Members of the public who have information about foreign fugitives are urged to contact ICE by calling the toll-free ICE tip line at 1 (866) 347-2423 or internationally at 001-1802-872-6199. They can also file a tip online by completing ICE’s online tip form.
In fiscal 2015, ICE removed or returned 235,413 individuals. Of this total, 165,935 were apprehended while, or shortly after, attempting to illegally enter the United States. The remaining 69,478 were apprehended in the interior of the United States, and the vast majority of these were convicted criminals who fell within ICE's civil immigration enforcement priorities.
Ninety-eight percent of ICE's fiscal 2015 removals and returns fell into one or more of ICE's civil immigration enforcement priorities, with 86 percent falling in Priority 1 and eight percent in Priority 2. In addition, ICE's interior enforcement activities led to an increase in the percentage of interior removals that were convicted criminals, growing from 82 percent in fiscal 2013 to 91 percent in 2015.
The Texas Tribune-
Members of several Native American tribes say a coal mine operating on a remote stretch of the Texas-Mexico border threatens sacred ancestral ground, and they are joining long-running attempts by environmentalists and local activists to shut the mine down.
Members of Texas’ Lipan Apaches, Pacuache Band of the Cohuiltecan Nation and Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe have teamed with the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma to draw attention to what they allege is the desecration of land being mined by Dos Republicas, owned by Mexican companies partnered in Texas with the Plano-based North American Coal Corporation and its subsidiary Camino Real Fuels.
The protesters hope a planned march this Saturday from the Rio Grande to the coal mine will be part of a larger effort to stop mining which they say threatens ancestral burial grounds.
“This land is sacred and holds ancestral knowledge of the many Native Nations who have shared this living space over thousands of years,” the organizers state on an online petition on Change.org, which has more than 3,500 signatures. The groups allege the tribes were not consulted before permits were issued, and that provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act were not followed.
The tribes are joining a yearslong battle. In 2011, citizens and environmentalists from Eagle Pass and Maverick County tried to stop the Texas Railroad Commission from granting the company a permit to mine low-grade coal from about 6,300 acres of land in Maverick County.
Opponents claimed transporting the low-quality coal would release hazardous particles into the air, and that the discharge from the operations would run off into a creek that ends in the Rio Grande, a main water source.
But the permit was awarded in 2013 and has survived several court challenges. The coal is shipped to Mexico for use there because its low quality makes it unusable in the United States.
The Native American effort is part of a two-pronged strategy that includes legal maneuvering by Maverick County and the city of Eagle Pass, which are filing petitions for review with the Texas Supreme Court in hopes of reversing the 3rd Court of Appeals decision last year that upheld the Railroad Commission's decision to approve the permit.
Dos Republicas spokesman Rudy Rodriguez said the company is fine with letting opponents of the mine speak but insisted the company has provided the impoverished patch of the Texas-Mexico border an economic boost. It has also followed all the state and federal regulations required, he said.
“We respect the free speech of everyone” involved, he said. “But we’ve moved over a million tons of coal by rail, and it’s in a remote area where people don’t really know what’s going on.”
Rodriguez added that since the company began its mining operations, it has hired 180 employees and doles out about $1.3 million in monthly salaries.
Tane Ward, an environmentalist who is helping spearhead the Native American effort, said support for the latest challenge is growing.
“When we started meeting we started alerting more and more allies,” he said, adding that some of the protesters could come from as far away as the Dakotas. He said even though out-of-state Indian nations don’t have a claim to the land on the Texas-Mexico border, they are supporting the Texans as a symbol of solidarity with all Native Americans whose lands have been taken.
And he argues the coal companies might not have followed protocol.
“There wasn’t a proper consultation done,” he said. “They don’t have respect for the ancestors” of the land.
DALLAS (AP) — The small-town Texas jail where Sandra Bland died last summer needs a new building, more expertise among its staff to identify mental health issues, and body cameras and anger-management training for its jailers, according to a report issued Tuesday by a panel convened after Bland's death.
The sheriff's office in Waller County agreed to have outside experts review the county jail in Hempstead, about 50 miles northwest of Houston after Bland died. Bland, who was black, was jailed after a state trooper pulled her over in July for a minor traffic violation. Dashcam video of her arrest and the circumstances of her death provoked national outrage and drew the attention of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Video of the stop near Houston shows the trooper, Brian Encinia, yelling at Bland, then pulling a stun gun and saying, "I will light you up!" Encinia has pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor perjury charge stemming from the stop. He has also been fired.
Bland, who was in the process of moving to Texas from the Chicago area, was found dead in the Waller County Jail three days after her arrest. Authorities said she was hanging from a jail cell partition with a plastic garbage bag around her neck. A medical examiner ruled it a suicide and a grand jury declined to indict any sheriff's officials or jailers in her death.
Bland's supporters have questioned whether the jail's conditions had anything to do with her death.
While the panelists who presented their jail report at a news conference Tuesday in Hempstead mostly stayed away from specifics about Bland's death, their recommendations target mental health screenings and the overall treatment of inmates.
One panelist, former U.S. Rep. Craig Washington, said anyone entering the jail was "entitled to be treated with dignity and respect as a human being."
Ultimately, that will require a new facility with more space, he said.
"The jail is not adequate, in our judgment," Washington said.
The panel also called on the sheriff's office to develop a policy for storing video footage and to purchase body cameras. It also said the jail should employ medical personnel who can screen incoming inmates for mental health issues.
Jailers supervising inmates should be separated from the officers who arrested them, the panel said. And jailers should undergo anger-management courses and routine evaluations.
Authorities have already said that Bland indicated on an intake questionnaire that she once tried to kill herself and was taking medication for epilepsy. Following her death, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards cited the jail for not observing inmates in person at least once every hour and not documenting that jailers had undergone training on dealing with potentially suicidal inmates.
Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith said he liked the report and was already starting to implement parts of it. He said jail staff would undergo "de-escalation" training in June, and that the county has already applied for a state grant to purchase body cameras.
"I'm open, willing to listen, and while we may not all agree on everything ... we're going to move forward," Smith said. "We're going to make a difference."
But the news conference was contentious at times. One person questioned why more attention wasn't paid to the high fees many jails charge inmates to make phone calls. Another accused Washington of being used by authorities to cover up their mistakes in Bland's case, to which he angrily replied, "You're absolutely wrong."
If the sheriff's office implements the report, Washington said, "I bet you six months from now, a year from now, we'll turn around and say, 'Wow, look at what they did in Waller County.'"
Bland's family has sued the county and the trooper who arrested her.
"It shouldn't take somebody dying to be self-reflective," said the family's attorney, Cannon Lambert, who had not seen the report.
"It may be a legacy that Sandy leaves that through her death, advances are made," Lambert added. "To that end, obviously, we would hope that problems at the jail get rectified."
