Tag: Texas

Illegal Alien Sex Offender Released Despite Detainer Request, ICE Says

Virginia Star Staff
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

Virginia Star Staff
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

Virginia Star Staff
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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Majority of Voters Polled Believe U.S. is Being Invaded at Southern Border

The Center Square
CBP Officer chasing illegal border crossers

The majority of American voters polled believe the U.S. is being invaded at the southern border. 

The findings come after Texas counties have led the national conversation on invasion, introducing the term and making the case for Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense. 

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

Virginia Star Staff
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 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?

Virginia Star Staff
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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Chinese Nationals Illegally Entering U.S. in Record Numbers Since 2021

The Center Square

The number of Chinese nationals illegally entering the U.S. – primarily single, military age men – has skyrocketed under the Biden administration.

Of the more than 140,000 Chinese who’ve illegally entered the country since fiscal 2021, one recently was apprehended at a Marine Corps base at the southwest border.

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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

Admin

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

Virginia Star Staff
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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Conservatives Hope Supreme Court’s Initial Ruling on Texas Immigration Law Inspires Other States

Just the News

A preliminary Supreme Court ruling that allowed Texas to begin enforcing a state law empowering local police to arrest and deport illegal aliens if the federal government doesn’t should inspire other states to follow suit, prominent conservatives tell Just the News.

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Todd Bensman: The Biden Administration Contributed to the Current Chaos in Haiti by Scuttling Free and Fair Elections There in 2021

Michael Patrick Leahy
Todd Bensman

Todd Bensman, senior fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Stephen K. Bannon on Saturday’s edition of WarRoom that the Biden Administration helped cause the current chaos in Haiti by scuttling free and fair elections in that Caribbean nation back in 2021.

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

The Center Square

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

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

Virginia Star Staff
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…

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George Soros Invests Millions in Flipping Texas Blue

Virginia Star Staff
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.…

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25 Republican Governors Release Joint Statement in Support of Texas

Kaitlin Housler

The Republican governors of 25 states have released a joint statement proclaiming their support for Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the steps his state has taken at its border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigrant crossings.

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Southern States Are Growing While The Northeast Shrinks

Virginia Star Staff
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.

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

Virginia Star Staff
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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Texas Transports over 100,000 Foreign Nationals to ‘Sanctuary Cities’

The Center Square

Since April 2022, more than 100,000 foreign nationals who have illegally crossed the border have been bused or flown from Texas to six sanctuary cities. This equates to roughly 5 percent of those who illegally entered Texas in fiscal 2023 alone, the highest number on record, The Center Square exclusively reported.

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

Virginia Star Staff

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

Virginia Star Staff

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

Virginia Star Staff
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

Virginia Star Staff

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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Longshot GOP Candidate Doug Burgum Suspends Presidential Campaign

Virginia Star Staff

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum announced Monday that he is suspending his 2024 presidential campaign.

Burgum jumped in the growing GOP primary field in early June and has spent his campaign largely focused on the economy, energy and national security. The governor criticized the Republican National Committee’s (RNC’s) upped debate requirements, which left Burgum off the last debate stage, during his announcement, accusing them of “nationalizing the primary system,” according to a press release.

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Texas AG Ken Paxton Sues Pfizer for Misrepresenting Efficacy of the COVID-19 Jabs and Conspiring to Censor Public Discourse

Virginia Star Staff
AG Ken Paxton

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday that he is suing Pfizer for “unlawfully misrepresenting” Covid-19 vaccine efficacy and conspiring to censor public discourse.

“Pfizer engaged in false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices by making unsupported claims regarding the company’s COVID-19 vaccine in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act,” Paxton said in a press release.

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Texas AG Launches Fraud Investigation into Media Matters

Virginia Star Staff

On Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-Texas) announced that the state would be launching a fraud probe into the far-left publication Media Matters.

As reported by the Daily Caller, the probe comes after Media Matters released a report on Thursday accusing the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, of putting anti-Semitic content next to advertisements. Although subsequent studies have proven this to be mostly false, multiple major corporations, including Apple, Disney, and IBM, have announced their plans to boycott advertising on the site.

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More Unaccompanied Migrant Children Being ‘Resettled’ in Texas than Elsewhere

The Center Square
border surge

The greatest number of unaccompanied children (UACs) arriving at the U.S. border are being “resettled” in Texas.

UACs have been sent to all 50 states and two U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, according to data from the U.S. Health & Human Services Department (HHS) and Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), tasked with their oversight and care.

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Commentary: Mail Ballot Security Is Under Nationwide Assault

Virginia Star Staff
ballot drop box

The Left loves to tout universal mail-in voting. Liberal enclaves like California, Hawaii, and Oregon have implemented it, while activists push aggressively to impose mail-in voting on Americans. But even as they push it, despite repeated instances of fraud, the Left simultaneously attacks any efforts to make vulnerable mail voting more secure. Indeed, the Left holds outright disdain for even minimal safeguards for mail ballots.

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Texas Sets Stage for Constitutional Struggle with Biden Admin over Border Protection

Virginia Star Staff

A Texas bill that makes it a state crime to cross the border at any location besides a port of entry could set up Texas’ next legal fight with the Biden administration.

The Texas House voted on a border security package Thursday, approving 84-60 a bill that enables local police to arrest or send back illegal migrants who cross the border. If passed by the Senate and signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, it could set up another big fight with the Biden administration over the border.

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