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2016 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES
SUPREME COURT
Super Tuesday wins Clinton, Trump claim big victories throughout South By JULIE PACE AND JILL COLVIN ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton were sweeping through the South on Super Tuesday, with the front-runners claiming victory in their parties’ primaries in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Clinton also picked up a win in Virginia, while Trump carried the Republi-
can contest in Massachusetts. Super Tuesday marked the busiest day of the 2016 primaries, with the biggest single-day delegate haul up for grabs. With elections in every region of the country, the contests put a spotlight on candidates’ strengths and weaknesses with a broad swath of American voters. For Clinton and Trump,
See PRESIDENTIAL PAGE 10A
Photo by Carolyn Kaster | AP
President Barack Obama presents the Medal of Honor to Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Byers. After an Oval Office sit-down on Tuesday did nothing to move Republican Senate leaders off their hard line against a Supreme Court nomination some feel the vacancy will not be filled this year. Photo by Drew Angerer | New York Times
Mitchell Westall attends a campaign event for Hillary Clinton. Clinton sweeped through the South on Super Tuesday, claiming victory in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia.
TEXAS PRIMARIES
ELECTION DAY TURNOUT
Leaders talk vacancy The void left in the seat will likely not be filled this year By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by Tamir Kalifa | AP
Volunteer election clerk Allie Green Jr. searches for places to post voting signs outside of a Fiesta Mart supermarket, a polling location, before polls open in Austin, Texas on Tuesday. Republicans will vote in 11 states, with 595 delegates at stake. Democrats will vote in 11 states and American Samoa, with 865 delegates up for grabs. Some states have contests Tuesday for only one party.
Voters head to the polls on Super Tuesday BLOOMBERG NEWS
State officials were reporting strong turnout for Super Tuesday balloting, the closest thing yet to a national referendum on Trump, the brash New
York billionaire who has thrown out the traditional rules of campaigning. A sweep would put him within reach of a goal many in the political world once thought unimaginable, the Republican nomination for
president. A strong Clinton showing could transform the former secretary of state from merely a dominant front-runner into the virtual nominee, following her trouncing of Senator Ber-
nie Sanders in South Carolina’s primary on Saturday. Sanders vowed Tuesday to take his campaign to the Democratic National Convention in July, and could win a few scattered contests.
WASHINGTON — After an Oval Office sitdown on Tuesday did nothing to move Republican Senate leaders off their hard line against a Supreme Court nomination, Democrats pulled out another weapon in the heated election-year fight: Donald Trump. In a White House meeting that lasted less than an hour, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told President Barack Obama that any confirmation process during a presidential campaign would politicize the court. They offered up no potential candidates that would win their backing and no route to filling the seat. “This vacancy will not be filled this year,” McConnell told reporters after the meeting. Democrats accused Republicans of trying to hold the seat open so that a Republican president can fill it. That president could be Trump, they noted, hoping to needle a GOP establishment uncomfortable with the prospects of Trump presidency.
The meeting — which also included Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the ranking Democrat on the judiciary committee — was the first time the leaders have met since Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last month set off a highstakes clash over the Supreme Court vacancy. While the men huddled at the White House, voters in 12 states were preparing to weigh in on a presidential contest that has tanked Obama’s chances of filling the seat — but also given Democrats a new line of attack. As they emerged from the meeting, they quickly linked the GOP strategy to the Republican front-runner poised to pick up significant momentum Tuesday night. “All we want them to do is fulfill their Constitutional duty and do their job, and at this stage, they decided not to do that,” Reid said. “They think that they can wait and see what President Trump will do, I guess.” Reid’s comments were aimed at riling up Democrats, as well as moderate and establishment
See VACANCY PAGE 10A
BORDERING ON INSECURITY
US citizen jailed in immigration status mistake By ANDY EAST TEXAS TRIBUNE
(Editor’s note: This story is part of The Texas Tribune’s yearlong Bordering on Insecurity project.) Ricardo Garza was just a few footsteps from freedom when the trouble started. He had posted bail and was on his way out the door of the Grand Prairie Police Department Detention Center — where he had been booked on charges of driving while intoxicated — when a jailer began asking questions. “I was maybe 3 feet away from
breathing fresh air,” Garza recalled. “And [the jailer] said ‘What’s your name? What’s your birthdate? What’s your social? Where GARZA were you born?’” That last question, and the way police reacted to his answer, would throw the 46year-old warehouse manager into the messy intersection of local law enforcement and U.S. immigration policy, ultimately triggering a federal lawsuit. Garza told jail officials he was born in Mexico but had since be-
come a U.S. citizen. But when the jail contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to verify his status, federal immigration officials told jailers they believed Garza was a U.S. permanent resident whose criminal history potentially made him a deportable immigrant. Their request to Grand Prairie: Don’t let him out. What happened next highlighted the conflicting pressures local jails face when it comes to foreign-born inmates: On one hand, state and federal lawmakers want local law enforcement officials to be tough on immigrants accused
of crimes. On the other, civil rights activists and immigrant advocates want federal immigration authorities to stop asking local jails to turn over information on people who are arrested. They cite the detention of potential citizens as Exhibit A in their quest. ICE placed a detainer on Garza on Oct. 30, 2015, 13 days after he was arrested, the same day he was transferred to Dallas County Jail. A detainer is the agency’s way of asking a jail to delay an inmate’s release by up to 48 hours so immigration officials can take them into custody. Dallas County decided to hold Garza without al-
lowing him to post bond. Garza’s detainer was not canceled until Dec. 5 — 36 days later — when his attorney, Eric Puente, provided evidence that Garza had “derived,” or acquired, U.S. citizenship when his mother naturalized in 1984. ICE has no civil authority to place immigration detainers on U.S. citizens. “On Dec. 5, while still in the custody of Dallas County Jail, Mr. Garza’s attorney provided additional documentation to ICE officers which indicated that Mr. Garza had derived U.S. citizenship,”
See MISTAKE PAGE 10A