DOJ threatening to sue Texas over Gov. Greg Abbott deploying controversial buoys at the border

BY Paige Hubbard

PUBLISHED Fri, July 21st 2023, 10:44 PM CDT

CBS Austin

AUSTIN, Texas — The U.S. and Mexico border is once again in the spotlight over border security. The Texas Department of Public Safety tells our sister station in San Antonio, floating barriers in the Rio Grande aren't completely operational as they're still being anchored down.

The barrier is being put up in Eagle Pass and is the latest attempt by Governor Greg Abbott to secure the border. DPS lieutenant Chris Olivarez says the buoys aren't to keep people out of the U.S., they're intended to steer people away from dangerous waters and toward the ports of entry.

Since Governor Greg Abbott announced the buoys would be deployed back in June, there's been growing backlash from Texas lawmakers and human rights organizations like LULAC. Now the federal government is getting involved. The Justice Department is threatening to sue the state of Texas over those floating barriers and is giving Governor Abbott until 1:00 p.m. Monday to remove the barriers to avoid a lawsuit.

The DOJ says the fencing was placed in the Rio Grande without authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In a letter to Greg Abbott, the DOJ says, “The State of Texas’s actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties.”

After the DOJ notified Governor Abbott that they plan to take legal action over his actions to deter migrants at the border, he took to Twitter. In one tweet Abbott said Texas has the authority to defend the border under the U.S constitution adding, “We’ll see you in court, Mr. President.”

Andy Hogue is with the Travis County Republican Party. He believes the governor is taking appropriate steps to protect the southern border.

“It's just the Biden administration versus Greg Abbott, democratic versus Republican. Not entirely unexpected. Now keep in mind this is a pilot program. It's not the entirety of the Rio Grande being full of border buoys. This is a small section of the Rio Grande so this is a test balloon to try and see whether this will float,” he said.

In recent weeks there have been allegations of the barrier causing injuries. It’s claimed that a pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage after getting caught in the wire. The Texas DPS tells CBS Austin the office of the inspector general is investigating the allegations.

“If our personnel are doing anything that violates policy, they will be held accountable. There are no orders from the top that prohibit Troopers from giving water to women and children or attending to migrants who need medical attention. Additionally, we can confirm that we do not set “barrel traps” in the river. There are barrels on land wrapped in concertina wire as part of deterrent fortifications. Here is a helpful tweet, and the emails you need are attached,” Texas DPS said.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio is now joining a list of democrats calling for the barriers to be removed. “Greg Abbott, pull these buoys out of the water now. Children are dying. People are getting hurt. By no means should these strategies be considered immigration policy or even border security. We are endangering the lives of not only migrants but law enforcement. This is reckless and cruel, plain and simple,” said Senator Roland Gutierrez.

“This is a dumb policy and we're lying to ourselves to think it’s going to control immigration,” said State Sen. Nathan Johnson.

State Sen. Nathan Johnson, D- Dallas doesn’t agree with recent laws signed by Governor Abbott to strengthen border security. He feels the crisis at the border is one that’s a deeper problem that deserves a smarter and kinder approach. He believes the state should be working to complement work already being done to address the crisis.

“There need to be employment regulations, guest worker programs, possibly an E verify. There needs to be a better system for processing asylum and better relationships with other nations. All of these things, I think, when combined, just a much more realistic humane approach is going to get us better results,” he said.

Immigration attorney Kate Lincon Goldfinch wants to remind people that the migrants at the border are human beings looking for a better life.

“These are the people who are running away from the criminals. And our laws say that we will give them an orderly way to seek asylum, not that we will drown them in the river with razor wire. That is not in line with what the laws of the United States say. It’s extremely clear that border enforcement is a federal jurisdictional issue. “It’s not acceptable on any front. Humanitarian or legal,” said Lincon Goldfinch.

The Office of the Governor issued a joint statement from Texas Border Czar Mike Banks, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Steve McCraw, and Texas Adjutant General Major General Thomas Suelzer. You can find that here.

Texas Republicans advance bills to expand religion in public schools

BY CHARLOTTE SCOTT AUSTIN

PUBLISHED 8:00 AM CT APR. 26, 2023

Spectrum News 1

AUSTIN, Texas — Cantor Sheri Allen has worked in synagogues for more than a decade, and she recently opened her own in Fort Worth. 

“We have only been in existence since November. We meet once a month at a church in the area and have Sabbath Shabbat services,” said Allen, who’s the co-founder of Makom Shelanu Congregation. 

Even though Allen is a chaplain, she does not support legislation that’s advancing through the Texas Senate. It would allow school districts to bring in chaplains, as either volunteers or paid employees, to do the job of a counselor.

What You Need To Know

• Legislation that’s advancing through the Texas Senate would allow school districts to bring in chaplains, as either volunteers or paid employees, to do the job of a counselor

• If a chaplain is paid, their salary would come from funding intended for school safety

• The bill’s author, Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, said this bill actually falls under the Free Exercise Clause, which is also part of the First Amendment

• This clause protects someone’s right to practice their religion as they please

“First of all, chaplains are not trained in any way to be able to counsel children in anything other than spiritual needs,” Allen said. “There’s no place for this in schools.” 

Allen believes the bill violates the Establishment Clause, which is part of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Commonly referred to as the “separation of church and state” clause, it prohibits the government from supporting a specific religion. 

Allen is concerned that Texas lawmakers are promoting Christianity. 

“It just makes me feel like there is a push to introduce Christian values, Christian liturgy, Christian thought in a public space,” Allen said. “School is hard enough for kids just trying to find their way in who they are.”

But the bill’s author, Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, said this bill actually falls under the Free Exercise Clause, which is also part of the First Amendment. This clause protects someone’s right to practice their religion as they please.

“This is not an establishment clause issue,” Sen. Middleton said. “This is just… one more tool in the toolbox for our public schools to be able to meet the needs of their students.” 

If a chaplain is paid, their salary would come from funding intended for school safety. Sen. Middleton argues that having chaplains on campus can help students’ and teachers’ mental health, thereby making schools safer.

Chaplains would not be required to be certified. They also could be hired in lieu of a school counselor, if the school district chooses to spend its money that way.

This bill is part of a bigger push by Texas Republicans to increase religion’s presence in the state’s public schools. But critics like Allen are raising concerns about violating the separation of church and state. The controversy revolves around three bills, including the one to bring chaplains into public schools. Another would mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Such a display sits on the Capitol grounds, but this is the first push for the text to appear in schools. A third bill would allow a period for prayer and reading the Bible or religious texts during the school day. Last year, a law passed that says schools must display "In God We Trust" posters in public schools if someone donates them.

When the school chaplain bill was debated on the Senate floor on Monday, Democratic Sens. Nathan Johnson of Dallas, José Menéndez of San Antonio and Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa of McAllen brought up a variety of concerns. 

“What are the odds that a given campus is going to employ a Muslim chaplain as opposed to a Christian chaplain?” Sen. Johnson asked Sen. Middleton.

Sen. Middleton said it’ll be up to school districts to decide which chaplains they hire. 

“We’re just authorizing our school districts to permissively opt in to this program,” he said.

“As a practical matter, I think it’s unlikely that we will see anything close to parity in representation in terms of which religion is represented by chaplains on a school campus,” Sen. Johnson said in response. “I just don’t think we’re going to see Muslim and Jewish rabbis on campus. Chaplains do a great deal of good in hospitals. They do a great deal of good in the correctional systems. I don’t think those systems are the same as our school system… I still have great concern that we are continuing to break down the wall of separation that framers of our Constitution insisted on having between church and state, and so I would respectfully oppose the bill.” 

A majority of Chaplains are Christian, Sen. Middleton conceded on Monday.

“As you referred to the separation of church and state, that’s not an actual doctrine. That was in a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury baptists. It’s not a real doctrine,” Sen. Middleton argued. “What this does is free exercise [of religion], and I think you’re referring to the establishment clause there.” 

“It’s a pretty real doctrine to some of us, but perhaps not to everyone,” Sen. Johnson fired back.

In an interview with Spectrum News, Sen. Middleton also made the point that lawmakers say a prayer every day in their respective chambers, and they work beneath lettering that says, “In God We Trust.” 

“In the Senate chamber, in the House chamber, it says, ‘In God We Trust’ above everything else,” Sen. Middleton said. “So our schools are not God-free zones. And what this does is to make sure that our students are able to exercise their religion freely and provide them tools that they currently don’t have. So that’s why that bill is so important. So an example right here in this building of why religious liberties are so important.”

Sen. Middleton believes this bill stands on sturdy legal ground because last year the Supreme Court backed a public school football coach who prayed on the field after games.

“[This] expands religious liberties and really gets rid of a lot of the legislating from the bench that we’ve seen our courts do over the years that have limited that Free Exercise Clause in our Constitution,” Sen. Middleton said.

But Michael S. Ariens, a law professor at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, said the legislation Texas lawmakers are pushing cannot be compared to the so-called Kennedy Case.

“The court decided that because his prayer was as a private citizen, and not as a coach — that is, he was not on the clock in the sense of having to just do things related to his coaching activities — it was a violation of the Free Exercise Clause for the school district to forbid him for saying these prayers after the end of games on the 50-yard line,” Ariens said. “I think the sponsors of these bills are reading the Kennedy Case very, very broadly. I don’t think it says what they are asking, and I think that if any of the three bills that have been proposed that have something to do with what we broadly call ‘religious liberty,’ it will be immediately challenged on Constitutional grounds.” 

As for Allen, she remains concerned about students who aren’t Christian — those who practice another religion or none at all — that could be made uncomfortable by framed posters of the Ten Commandments on classroom walls, time set aside to pray or read religious texts and even the presence of school chaplains.

“This is supposed to be a country that is open to all faiths, all religions and the ability to express them, but not in public schools. I mean, the Constitution is pretty clear about that,” Allen said.  

A disagreement about the separation of church and state in schools is likely to go from the classroom to the courtroom. 

State Sen. Nathan Johnson Announces Priority Legislation

March 6, 2023 Maria Lawson

People Newspapers

State Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, announced a set of bills for the 88th Legislative Session aimed at providing Texans with reliable energy, reforming the criminal justice system, equipping skills with necessary resources for students, utilizing early prevention to reduce healthcare costs, and a strategy to expand Medicaid in Dallas.

“Good results come from good systems,” Johnson said. “Many of the bills I’ve filed aim to make the state systems on which we rely — for power, for free and fair elections, for public education, for health and healthcare, and for public safety and law enforcement — more responsive, efficient, and effective.”

The bills are as follows.

Electrical Grid Resiliency: Power in Numbers

• Senate Bill 1212 (Distributed Energy Resources): this bill brings small-scale residential electricity generation, such as rooftop solar and local microgrids, onto the grid by creating a standardized framework for their integration into power distribution systems.

Building Public Health and Criminal Justice Systems That Protect and Improve People’s Lives

• Senate Bill 86 (Fentanyl Test Strips): reduces deadly fentanyl overdoses by decriminalizing the use, possession, delivery, and manufacturing of testing equipment that identifies the presence of fentanyl.

• Senate Bill 623 (Overdose Prevention Testing): reduces deadly overdoses by broadening legal forms of drug testing and tightening the definition of “paraphernalia.” This will allow individuals to use the latest forms of drug-testing equipment to detect fentanyl and newer deadly drugs.

Providing Public Schools with Resources, Stability, and Respect

• Senate Bill 88 (Basic Allotment Inflation Adjustment): raises the per-student basic allotment and ties it to inflation to help public schools manage finances with stability and keep prior promises to public education.

• Senate Bill 89 (Pre-Kindergarten for Teachers): offers pre-K programs to the children of public school teachers and provides teachers with automatic qualification for their children to enroll in public school pre-K.

• Senate Bill 90 (Charter School Campus Application): raises the threshold of transparency and accountability in the establishment of new open-enrollment charter school campuses and sites. It requires charter expansion applications to include a study of the financial impact on the local school district and approval by the full State Board of Education.

• Senate Bill 263 (School Enrollment Funding): changes the Texas school finance system to be based on enrollment instead of attendance.

• Senate Bill 350 (Paid Parental Leave Policy): requires school districts and open-enrollment charter schools to adopt a paid parental leave policy and reimburses schools for associated costs.

Fair, Accessible, and Secure Elections

• Senate Bill 92 (Online Voter Registration): creates an online registration system for mail-in applications and Volunteer Deputy Registrar applications to make it easier to register to vote and save the state and county election officials time and money.

• Senate Bill 94 (Earlier Voter Pre-Registration): changes the pre-registration age to 17 years to help kids pre-register in time to vote in the year they turn 18.

• Senate Bill 293 (Against Intimidation of Election Officials): establishes a criminal offense for a person who harasses an election official, intentionally interferes with or prevents and election official from performing their duty, or disseminates personal information about an election official.

Lowering Healthcare Costs Through Early Prevention, Early Detection, and Administrative Efficiencies

• Senate Bill 290 (Health Information Exchange): authorizes the Texas Health Services Authority, a statewide Health Information Exchange, to collect and analyze clinical data as permitted under HIPAA to promote statewide interoperability of electronic health records. It ensures oversight of Texans’ clinical data by a Texas HIE and protects the privacy of patients.

• Senate Bill 294 (Asthma Medicine in Schools): allows schools to stock quick-relief medications to treat children in respiratory distress, such as inhalers, by aligning requirements to those currently in place for epinephrine.

• Senate Bill 550 (Express Lane Eligibility): reduces administrative burdens and streamlines the eligibility process for CHIP and Medicaid enrollment or re-enrollment by allowing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to use previously verified income data.

• Senate Bill 244 (State-Based Exchange): established the Texas Health Insurance Exchange Authority to implement a state-based exchange to reduce net monthly premium payments, apply savings to higher enrollment, and lower out-of-pocket expenses.

• Senate Bill 619 (Early Hearing Program Reform): provides newborn and infant hearing screenings by enhancing provider understanding, improving reporting and referral rates, and reducing the state’s loss to follow-up/documentation.

Leading the Charge for Medicaid Expansion in Texas

• Senate Bill 195 (Live Well Texas Program by 1115 Waiver): expands access to state Medicaid health insurance while preserving state control over funds and generating positive net revenue for the state. It directs HHSC to seek a waiver expanding eligibility for Medicaid benefits to all individuals for whom federal matching funds are available, encourages personal healthcare responsibility, encourages personal healthcare responsibility, increases healthcare responsibility, and ensures Medicare rate parity for Medicaid providers.

• Senate Bill 71 & Senate Joint Resolution 10 (Medicaid Expansion by Constitutional Amendment): a constitutional amendment to be submitted to voters on Nov. 7, 2023, that would require the state to expand Medicaid. If voters approve, the amendment provided in SJR 10 directs Texas HHSC to adopt rules pursuant to Senate Bill 71.

• Senate Bill 72 (Medicaid Expansion by Legislature): would require Medicaid expansion by simple legislation vote.

• Senate Bill 343 (Medicaid Expansion by 1115 Waiver): directs HHSC to use its discretion to craft a federally-acceptable section 1115 waiver to expand Medicaid coverage to all individuals for whom federal matching funds are available, encourage personal healthcare responsibility, and increase healthcare accessibility.