Category Archives: Greg Abbott

Texas Ice facility shooting: Republicans blame ‘radical left’ as Democrats focus on victims and gun control

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Democrats say Trump allies are using incident for ‘political points’ against the left despite the victims being detainees

A deadly shooting at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in Dallas has been met with markedly different reactions from the political right and left.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed shortly after the news broke that detainees were the victims of the sniper attack on the facility and that no federal agents had been injured. The president and his allies, however, were quick to frame the shooting as an attack on Ice and place blame on the “radical left”.

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Texas prepares for final approval of Republican map as senator threatens to filibuster

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Carol Alvarado posted on social media: ‘Republicans think they can walk all over us. Today I’m going to kick back’

The Texas legislature preliminarily approved a redrawn congressional map on Friday that gives Republicans a chance to pick up as many as five congressional seats, fulfilling a brazen political request from Donald Trump to shore up the GOP’s standing before next year’s midterm elections.

The tentative map adoption passed in an 18-11 party-line vote.

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Texas Democrats tear ‘permission slips’ imposed by Republican house speaker

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Lawmakers refuse to vacate house chamber to protest surveillance after they left state over GOP attempt to redraw maps

Texas Democrats are tearing up “permission slips” they signed in order to leave the chamber, joining state representative Nicole Collier ahead of Wednesday’s vote on the controversial Texas congressional redistricting maps.

The slips are part of new surveillance protocols set by Texas Republicans in the house chamber, stating that Democrats would “be granted written permission to leave only after agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated [Texas department of public safety] officer” who would ensure their return to the chamber.

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Texas redistricting fight with Democrats ‘could last years’, threatens Greg Abbott

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Governor warns lawmakers who left to foil redistricting plan that he coould call special session to extend battle

Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has stepped up his war of words with Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to foil an aggressive redistricting plan aimed at giving his Republican party five additional seats in Congress, saying on Sunday that the fight “could literally last years”.

Abbott issued his new threat on Fox News Sunday, saying that he would use his powers to call a special session of the Texas legislature to extend the battle indefinitely. The special session lasts 30 days, he said, “and as soon as this one is over, I’m going to call another one, then another one, then another one, then another one”.

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Bomb scare rattles Democrats who fled Texas amid showdown with governor

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Lawmakers had been sheltering in Illinois after denying Texas Republicans quorum for gerrymandering scheme

Texas Democrats who fled the state say they experienced a bomb threat at their Illinois hotel on Wednesday morning amid an ongoing clash with Republicans over their effort to block a new congressional map from going into place.

John Bucy III, a Democrat who represents Austin in the state legislature, confirmed the threat on X on Wednesday and said the lawmakers were evacuated. “This is what happens when Republican state leaders publicly call for us to be ‘hunted down’. Texas Democrats won’t be intimidated,” he said.

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Trump to tour Texas flood damage as disaster tests vow to shutter Fema

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Since disaster that has killed at least 120 people, Trump has remained quiet about promises to axe relief agency

As Donald Trump heads to Texas on Friday for a firsthand look at the devastation caused by catastrophic flooding, he has remained conspicuously quiet about his previous promises to do away with the federal agency in charge of disaster relief.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Trump administration has backed away from plans to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but administration officials continue to dodge questions about the agency’s future and many are still calling for serious reforms, potentially sending much of its work to the states.

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Elon Musk and Texas governor celebrate firing of worker over pronouns in email signature

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Billionaire Trump ally and Greg Abbot tweet about Frank Zamora, who was let go after refusing to remove pronouns

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and, later, Elon Musk showed support on Wednesday for the firing of a state employee who refused to remove his pronouns from his work email signature.

Frank Zamora, 31, was let go from his job as a program manager at the Texas real estate commission (TREC) last month because he refused to comply with a mandate from the organisation to employees to remove gender pronouns from email signatures.

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Texas governor pardons man who killed Black Lives Matter protester in 2020

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Greg Abbott on Thursday pardoned Daniel Perry, who has been serving a 25-year sentence since 2023 murder conviction

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas issued a full pardon on Thursday to a former US army sergeant convicted of murder for fatally shooting an armed demonstrator in 2020 during nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice.

Abbott announced the pardon just minutes after the Texas board of pardons and paroles disclosed it had made a unanimous recommendation that Daniel Perry be pardoned and have his firearms rights restored. Perry has been held in state prison on a 25-year sentence since his conviction in 2023.

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New York mayor sues bus operators that brought migrants from Texas for $708m

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Lawsuit announced by Eric Adams says 17 bus companies violated state law by transporting 33,000 people to the city

New York City has sued 17 charter bus companies that transported migrants from Texas, the mayor, Eric Adams, announced on Thursday.

The lawsuit, filed in New York state court in Manhattan, says the city is seeking $708m from the firms because that was the cost it incurred to house the migrants and provide services to them over the past two years.

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US Department of Justice sues Texas over new state immigration law

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Suit is aimed at stopping a law allowing police to detain people suspected of crossing the US border without authorization

The US Department of Justice has sued Texas and its Republican governor, Greg Abbott, to block a new and controversial state immigration law from going into effect.

After threatening the state with legal action after last year’s passage of SB4, a new Texas law which allows state police to arrest any person they suspect has crossed the US-Mexico border without authorization, the justice department did so on Wednesday. Immigration and border control officially falls under the purview of the federal government – not individual states.

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Houston Chronicle compares people crossing border to Mary and Joseph

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Editorial board publishes opinion piece in response to hard-right Republican governor’s latest immigration crackdown

A stinging Christmas opinion issued by the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle newspaper asks Texas’s hard-right Republican leader: “How would governor Greg Abbott treat Mary and Joseph at the border?”

The leading media outlet in the Democratic-voting city published an editorial article on Christmas Eve and posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Christmas Day protesting at the red state’s latest crackdown on people seeking refuge by crossing the US-Mexico border without authorization.

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Texas governor signs bill allowing police to arrest migrants entering US illegally

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Law gives police sweeping new powers as well as empowering local judges to order migrants’ expulsion

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, on Monday signed a bill giving all police in the state sweeping new powers to arrest migrants deemed to have entered the US illegally as well as empowering local judges to order their expulsion back across the US-Mexico border.

The hard-right Republican’s actions represent a brazen challenge to the federal government’s authority over the enforcement of US immigration law.

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Texas governor endorses Trump for 2024 race at US-Mexico border event

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Greg Abbott said Biden’s border policies pose a danger to the US and credited Trump with lowering number of border crossings

Donald Trump won the endorsement of Texas governor Greg Abbott at an event near the US-Mexico border Sunday, a location meant to highlight the former Republican president’s plans to crack down on immigration if he wins the 2024 White House race.

Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic president Joe Biden next year, traveled to Edinburg, Texas, with his fellow Republican Abbott to visit national guard soldiers, state public safety department troopers and other service members stationed there.

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US appeals court tosses lawsuit over Texas migrant transportation restrictions

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A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based court found that immigration advocates lacked the legal authority to sue Abbott

A US federal appeals court on Friday sided with Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, on technical grounds over a 2021 executive order that restricted transport of migrants through the state, saying a lower court should dismiss a related legal challenge.

In a 2-1 split, a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based fifth US circuit court of appeals found that immigration advocates lacked the legal authority to sue Abbott over the transportation prohibition.

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Texas ordered to remove buoys meant to block migrants from Rio Grande River

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Preliminary order issued by judge David Ezra requires the floaters to be relocated to an embankment on the state side of the river

A US judge ordered Texas to move a line of floating buoys that were placed in the middle of the Rio Grande to block migrants from crossing the US-Mexico border. The ruling is a tentative win for the Biden administration after the Department of Justice (DoJ) sued the state.

The federal judge David Ezra on Wednesday issued a preliminary injunction in the state capital of Austin that requires Texas to relocate the controversial buoys, currently near the city of Eagle Pass, to an embankment on the Texas side of the river.

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Texas carves out narrow exception to abortion ban in new Republican strategy

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Law allows for termination if patient’s water breaks too early or in cases of ectopic pregnancy, but critics say it is not enough

A Texas law about to take effect on Friday carves out exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.

In June, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, quietly signed HB 3058, allowing doctors to provide abortion care when a patient’s water breaks too early for the fetus to survive, or when a patient is suffering from an ectopic pregnancy.

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‘Inhumane’: judge hears arguments about anti-migrant buoys in Rio Grande

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Court to decide whether to remove them as Greg Abbott and other Republican governors defend militarization of border with Mexico

A federal judge heard arguments on Tuesday about whether state authorities should remove huge buoys installed to stop migrants crossing the river that divides Texas from Mexico.

The court hearing in Austin came a day after Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, and a group of hardline Republican governors gathered on the riverbank to defend local militarization of the US-Mexico border – while also acknowledging that the 1,000ft (305-meter) floating barrier had been adjusted after complaints that it had mostly drifted into Mexican territory.

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Three-year-old asylum seeker dies after being bussed from Texas to Chicago

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From Venezuela, the child died at a local Illinois hospital on Thursday evening after showing signs of illness

A three-year-old girl from Venezuela being transported to Chicago from Texas by bus with other migrants died at a local Illinois hospital after showing signs of illness, the Texas department of emergency management said on Friday.

“Once the child presented with health concerns, the bus pulled over and security personnel on board called 9-1-1 for emergency attention,” the TDEM said in a written statement.

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DoJ sues Texas governor over refusal to remove anti-migrant buoys from river

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Move is the latest in a growing political spat between Greg Abbott and Biden administration over immigration

The US Department of Justice has sued the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, over his refusal to remove a floating barrier placed on the Rio Grande to stop migrants entering the US from Mexico.

The move is the latest in a growing political spat between Abbott and the Biden administration, heightened by Republican attempts to scaremonger over immigration as the 2024 presidential election looms.

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‘Not acceptable’: Texas lawmaker speaks on reports of inhumane border tactics

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Tony Gonzales said governor Greg Abbott is ‘doing everything he can’ at the US-Mexico border despite justice department backlash

A Texas Republican representative, Tony Gonzales, has called the current tactics used to deter migrants at the US-Mexico border “not acceptable” and urged the Biden administration and Congress to focus more heavily on legal immigration.

In an interview with CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday, Gonzales, whose 23rd district in Texas includes 800 miles of the US-Mexico border, said that the border crisis “has been anything but humane” and called recent reports of Texas troopers allegedly pushing small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande “not acceptable”.

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