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TEXAS
BORDER PATROL
Lawsuits could spell budget doomsday
$5.6M pot seizure
By KIAH COLLIER THE TEXAS TRIBUNE
Last week, lawyers for the state of Texas got the latest in a string of bad legal news. A lawsuit challenging the state’s foster care system as inhumane appeared to gain steam when an appeals court rejected the state’s request to stop the appointment of two “special masters” to recommend reforms. The overhauls that have been discussed so far would be pricey to implement — as much as $100 million per year, according to rough estimates from the state comptroller’s office. But they actually are on the lower end of all the extraordinary legal expenses the state is facing at a time when stubbornly low oil prices are simultaneously threatening to blunt its coffers. Three other lawsuits against the state — two of them pending before the Texas Supreme Court, with rulings expected soon — could cost the state billions if it ends up on the losing side. Experts say the state may have the cash to cover one of them in a single budget cycle, but probably not any more than that — especially if low oil prices persist, dampening the state’s stream of tax revenue. That could mean budget cuts when lawmakers meet for the 2017 session, at least if the Republican-dominated Legislature remains steadfast in its refusal to tap the state’s nearly $10 billion Rainy Day Fund. Two of those three lawsuits, both tax cases, could cost the state a combined $10.4 billion in tax refunds and up to $2 billion in collections per year beyond that, according to the comptroller’s office, which is closely monitoring them. Potential cost estimates do not exist for the last case — a high-profile challenge to the state’s public education funding system — but past school finance rulings have cost the state billions. Such sums would handily eclipse the state’s $4.2 billion projected surplus, which could itself dwindle if oil prices remain low and further blunt tax collections. (Comptroller Glenn Hegar has already lowered projections once.) “Any of those by themselves are a huge hit,” said Dale Craymer, president of the business-backed Texas Taxpayers and Research Association. “But if you start losing two or three of those issues then, yeah, it’s much more questionable that the state’s general revenue reserves are sufficient to cover that.” Craymer, a former state revenue estimator, said the outlook would be much worse if lawmakers hadn’t intentionally left several billion dollars on the table last year following a spectacular plunge in oil prices — a choice Republicans trumpeted as principled and Democrats bemoaned in the face of several unmet needs.
See LAWSUITS PAGE 8A
Mexican military officials helped in the effort THE ZAPATA TIMES
More than 3 tons of marijuana were recently seized on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande near Zapata, Border Patrol announced Thursday. At about 8 p.m. Saturday, Border Patrol agents in Zapata said they saw several people loading bundles of contraband in two separate boats on the Mexican side of the river. Agents had been monitoring the group and contacted Mexican government officials to update them about
Courtesy photo | Border Patrol
More than 3 tons of marijuana were recently seized on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande near Zapata. A total of 465 bundles were seized by the Mexican military and had a total weight of 7,297.4 pounds.
See SEIZURE PAGE 8A
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
BP ENDORSES TRUMP
Photo by Eric Gay | Texas Tribune
Border Patrol agents are shown at a processing facility in Brownsville on June 18, 2014. A National Border Patrol Council spokesperson said in a statement that Trump’s honesty on immigration is what the nation needs to stop the “open borders” mentality of current office holders.
The endorsement is a first for the Border Patrol union By JULIÁN AGUILAR THE TEXAS TRIBUNE
The national union that represents more than 16,000 agents of the United States Border Patrol issued its firstever endorsement of a presidential candidate on Wednesday by throwing its support behind Republican Donald Trump.
Lauding Trump as an outsider who bucks political correctness, a National Border Patrol Council spokesperson said in a statement that Trump’s honesty on immigration, though ill-received by some, is what the nation needs to stop the “open borders” mentality of current office holders. “The fact that people are more upset about Mr. Trump’s
tone than about the destruction wrought by open borders tells us everything we need to know about the corruption in Washington,” the statement said. “Our current political establishment has bled this country dry, sees their power evaporating, and isn’t listening to voters who do all the heavy lifting.” Shawn Moran, a council
spokesman, said the national office consulted with individual sector unions on the endorsement before the 11-member NBPC board made its decision. Moran declined to say whether the vote was unanimous. As of 2015, there were about 20,275 Border Patrol agents
See ENDORSE PAGE 8A
IMMIGRATION RIGHTS
Kids not being advised By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICO CITY — Mexico does not comply with its own laws on handling unaccompanied child migrants who arrive in the country fleeing violence in Central America, a Human Rights Watch report said Thursday. Since the United States pressured Mexico to step up detentions of migrants to reduce a surge reaching the U.S. border, the number of children detained in Mexico Photo by Eduardo Verdugo | AP file has risen dramatically. Last In this file photo, a young migrant girl waits for a freight train to de- year, Mexican authorities part on her way to the U.S. border, in Ixtepec, Mexico. apprehended nearly 36,000
children, more than half of whom were unaccompanied. It detained 9,600 children in 2013. In interviews with 61 child migrants, Human Rights Watch researchers were told by only one that officials had informed him of his right to seek refugee recognition, as is required by Mexican law. Children were not properly screened for possible refugee claims, the report said. On the contrary, it said, the children described immigration officials who warned them of long stays in detention if they applied for asy-
lum. And even if they did want to apply, there was no legal assistance to help them navigate the process. Only 0.3 percent of the unaccompanied child migrants detained in Mexico were granted international protection in 2015, the report said. “If the interest is enforcement, which it is, meaning arrest, detention and deportation, it is clearly in the interest of individual officials, agents, to make that as easy as possible,” said Michael Bochenek, senior counsel to the children’s rights division of Human Rights
Watch and the report’s author. “They are not complying with the law, and as to why they are doing that, that’s an open question. There is no question that the incentive is to cut corners.” Without mentioning the report, Mexico’s national immigration institute released a statement Thursday saying that “without exception” all unaccompanied children are informed of their rights and cared for until they can be reunified with their families.
See ADVISED PAGE 8A