In the News
President Donald Trump's views on immigration are hard to pin down.
He is a longtime critic of illegal immigration and has embraced a draconian approach to enforcement of our nation's laws concerning unauthorized entry. But it's increasingly hard to believe that he's committed to upholding the law — or that he supports legal immigration, as he has often insisted.
He said in recent days that his administration was looking "very seriously" at ending birthright citizenship, even though doing so would require amending the Constitution to scale back the protections enshrined in the 14th Amendment. The White House also announced that it plans to end the 1997 Flores legal settlement, which caps the number of days that migrant children can be detained.
Ready, set, fest! Today we announced the program and speakers for the 2019 Texas Tribune Festival — Sept. 26-28 in downtown Austin. It's our ninth annual ideas weekend, our biggest by a mile and absolutely our most ambitious yet.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has declared that the citizens of Venezuela "have suffered for too long at the hands" of the violent Maduro regime. His administration has warned Venezuela is as dangerous a place to be as North Korea, Iran and Syria. Violent crime is common; food, water, electricity and medicine are in short supply, the warnings say.
But Trump's administration so far has refused to allow Venezuelan citizens to take shelter in the U.S., even temporarily.
Now the Democratic House of Representatives — with the help of a few Texas Republicans — is trying to force them to do so.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert on Wednesday tore into Robert Mueller during his long-awaited appearance on Capitol Hill, accusing the former special counsel of "perpetuating injustice" by dragging out his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The east Texas congressman joined Republican efforts to discredit Mueller, whose public testimony Democrats have hoped would provide ammunition for potential impeachment of President Donald Trump. Gohmert accused the former special counsel of stacking his investigative team with agents who have vendettas against Trump and highlighted Mueller's friendship with former FBI Director James Comey, now a vocal critic of the president.
After remaining silent for nearly two years – with the exception of a brief statement expressing his reluctance to speak before Congress – former special counsel Robert Mueller testified before two U.S. House committees about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and President Donald Trump's actions around that investigation.
Mueller, who was subpoenaed to testify following the release of a more than 400-page report addressing Russian interference into the campaign and the possible obstruction of justice by Trump, frequently referred to the report as he testified before members of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Select Permanent Committee on Intelligence.
Engineers and elected officials are using outdated tools to assess flood risks and make coastal areas more resilient to storms, which are becoming increasingly severe and frequent, a panel of experts testified Monday at a congressional committee hearing in Houston.
The panel, convened by U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher for a House Science subcommittee hearing, told Congress members that scientists have become better than ever at forecasting hurricanes and storm surges.
Yet Houston remains acutely vulnerable to major storms, they said, and the metro area's economy will face repeated threats from future hurricanes if refineries and chemical plants around the ship channel do not receive better protection.
WASHINGTON — For the third time since President Donald Trump took office, Democratic Congressman Al Green of Houston pressed the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach the president Wednesday.
And for the third time, Green failed.
The Democratic-controlled House voted to table Green's articles of impeachment, which he put forward Tuesday night, effectively killing the measure. The motion to table impeachment passed 332 to 95.
Facebook's crypto chief David Marcus faced skepticism Wednesday from lawmakers at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on the company's plans for the digital currency Libra.
The hearing's tone was far more harsh than the one Marcus testified at Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Several members of congress on the House committee expressed skepticism over Facebook's decision to delve into a digital currency and financial services before it has tackled other problems around privacy and election meddling.
EL PASO, TEXAS - The Trump administration is facing growing complaints from migrants about severe overcrowding, meager food and other hardships at border holding centers, with some people at an encampment in El Paso being forced to sleep on the bare ground during dust storms.
The Border Network for Human Rights issued a report Friday based on dozens of testimonials of immigrants over the past month and a half, providing a snapshot of cramped conditions and prolonged stays in detention amid a record surge of migrant families coming into the U.S. from Central America.
Teen mother, premature infant caged