In the News
Following pressure from civil liberties groups and members of President Biden's own party, the CDC will reportedly soon do away with Title 42, the Covid-era restriction that allows instant expulsions of migrants at the Southern border.
Expected to end in May, Title 42 is a clause from the 1944 public health code that allows the government to take emergency action to stop the "introduction of communicable diseases" into the U.S., but it had been rarely used until the Trump Administration implemented it as an immigration policy during the Covid pandemic. The Biden Administration continued its implementation, but the decision to continue Title 42 comes up for review every 60 days.
A bill that proposes to create a whistleblower program for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has been reintroduced to the House after failing to be acted upon by the Senate in 2019.
"The PCAOB Whistleblower Bill of 2022 (H.R.7245), introduced Monday by Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), is identical to a bill (H.R.3625) that was passed by the House in 2019 but never acted upon in the Senate."
Baylor College of Medicine hosted U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (TX-29) for a check presentation from the Congressional Community Project Funding program that will support Baylor and Harris Health's long-COVID care clinics. The funding is part of the Bipartisan Omnibus Appropriations Bill.
The bill allocated $10.2 million for Community Project Funding, of which $1.1 million was awarded to Baylor to support long-COVID care facilities, which will be expanding to Harris Health's Strawberry Clinic located in East Harris County in the 29th Congressional District.
I spent much of this week watching Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearing, which will likely result in her becoming the first Black woman and the sixth woman overall to join the Supreme Court in the institution's 232-year existence.
But I also started the week thinking about a time before any woman had served on the high court — 1977, specifically, when Congress funded the first and ultimately only National Women's Conference, designed to address that and other glaring omissions from American democracy.
A fifth employee at a federal women's prison in California has been indicted on charges stemming from sexual abuse of an inmate.
EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – House Democrats are urging the Biden administration to have asylum-seekers request U.S. immigration benefits in their own countries rather than make a dangerous 2,000-mile-plus trek.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the 22 House members praised President Joe Biden for "addressing root causes of migration" by sending more aid to Central America but said additional steps are needed to deter irregular migration.
On Monday, a group of Democratic members of Congress from Texas issued a letter urging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to enforce Medicaid's free choice of provider requirement and require the State of Texas to reinstate Planned Parenthood as a qualified Medicaid provider.
Rep. Lizzie Fletcher led her colleagues in issuing the letter, which was signed by Reps. Lloyd Doggett, Colin Allred, Sylvia Garcia, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Veronica Escobar, Joaquin Castro, Al Green, Marc Veasey, and Sheila Jackson Lee.
EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – House Democrats are urging the Biden administration to have asylum-seekers request U.S. immigration benefits in their own countries rather than make a dangerous 2,000-mile-plus trek.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the 22 House members praised President Joe Biden for "addressing root causes of migration" by sending more aid to Central America but said additional steps are needed to deter irregular migration.
Democratic Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia (TX-29) joins Julie Mason Mornings to discuss the positive judicial implications of the FAIR Act and her meeting recently with students majoring in social work.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, held a third Water Resources and Development Act (WRDA) hearing on March 16, providing a chance for Representatives to seek local project funding.
Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (OR-4), in opening remarks, noted large recent spending increases for water projects, e.g., the new infrastructure bill and harbor trust fund policy changes in WRDA 2020. Still, he commented that even this new money cannot pay for the backlog of the Corps' projects. Hence the continuing need to be selective.
Indeed, members' requests showed communities across the nation struggling with project funding. An inherent challenge, of course, is to present a convincing case that a local project also has national value, or at least regional value.