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Monday, February 6, 2017
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POLICY
Immigration policy restricts federal agents By Lisa Dreher @lisa_dreher97
When Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez’s new immigration policy went into effect Wednesday, 37 suspected undocumented immigrants were released, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The policy does not allow federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents without warrants to ask the sheriff ’s office
to turn over suspected undocumented immigrants held in local jails. Federal agents can make detainer requests to ask local law enforcement if they can investigate and possibly deport undocumented immigrants. On Wednesday, 37 suspected undocumented immigrants were on bail, but since ICE agents were removed from the jail because they were not allowed to investigate them without warrants, those inmates were released back into the
public instead of directly into ICE custody, according to the Statesman. According to the Statesman, 30 out of 196 detainer requests by ICE were honored Wednesday. The requests only ask her office to comply with them, so cooperation is voluntary, Hernandez said. Hernandez’s policy will only honor requests not accompanied by warrants from a judge if the suspected undocumented
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Phone scammers target area residents @catherinemarfin
Zoe Fu | Daily Texan file photo
Sheriff Hernandez’s immigration policy went into effect Wednesday and 37 undocumented detainees were released into the public.
Law enforcement holds town hall forum By Catherine Marfin @catherinemarfin
FORUM page 2
POLICE
By Catherine Marfin
POLICE
In an effort to create an open dialogue between law enforcement officials and the Austin community, the Travis County Sheriff ’s Office and the Austin Police Department held a “Building Bridges” town hall meeting on Saturday to discuss the department’s successes and challenges. “We have to pay attention — this isn’t just a one-and-ahalf hour forum, these things happen every day,” said Nelson Linder, president of the Austin branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who opened the event and introduced the panelists. “These are the times of details, times we need to take care of little things before they turn into big things. I want to encourage folks to invest in this process and ask the tough questions.” Hosted by APD Assistant Chief Frank Dixon and
bit.ly/dtvid
Gabby Lanza| Daily Texan Staff
Interim Police Chief Brian Manley addresses members of the community at a town hall meeting. He urges community engagement to prevent crime in the Austin community.
CAMPUS
The UT Police Department warned the community last week about a growing phone scam that makes someone a victim by saying one word — “yes.” Individuals will get a call from someone who will almost immediately ask “Can you hear me?” If the individual answers “yes,” the scammer will record their response and use the agreement to sign the individual up for a service or product, later producing the recorded “yes” response as your agreement to submit a payment. The Better Business Bureau reported that in the last few days of January, more than half of the reports to their Scam Tracker have been about this scam. “This is a huge scam going around,” UTPD spokeswoman Cindy Posey said. “It’s a serious thing to have someone take that recording and call back and say, “You agreed to this, and we have it on record. We want students to talk to their friends and family about it … and spread the word.” According to the BBB, the scam has been used in the past to coerce businesses into purchasing supplies or advertisements that they never ordered but is now targeting individual consumers. The scammers usually call about vacation packages,
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INNOVATION
UT hosts annual technology conference New biobank links UT System schools By Jack Stenglein @thedailytexan
On Saturday, approximately 300 students attended the fourth annual MADcon, an app development conference hosted by UT’s Mobile App Development society. “It is by far one of my favorite events,” chairman of UT computer science Bruce Porter said. “I love that it is explicitly not a competition, but more of a grassroots movement, with hundreds of students giving their time and sharing their knowledge. It’s fundamentally a great way to learn.” The conference consisted of a variety of sessions that covered topics such as Android and iOS development and technological advancement in China. Computer science freshman Catherine Lu said the sessions were interesting and informative. “It kind of makes you want
to go home and create more side projects,” Lu said. “It was great just learning things in a safe environment and with help, and it was also cool to see and meet other computer science people.” Before the sessions began, Tom Bishop, who worked at Bell Labs, a large telecommunication company, and former vice-president of technology at UNIX, an operating system company, gave a keynote address on entrepreneurship. According to Bishop, current computing power allows almost any project to be entrepreneurial, but innovation requires products to quickly evolve. “The best place for innovation is here, at universities,” Bishop said during his keynote. “You can sit around and talk to other people and to professors with no profit motive. You’re all very lucky — there are lots of very smart people working very hard at UT. Each of you have
By Kayla Meyertons @kemeyertons
Yifan Lyu | Daily Texan Staff
Tom Bishop, experienced technology executive, gave a keynote address on entrepreneurship in MADcon.
the potential to build something that will change the world.” In addition to MADcon, UT’s Mobile App Development, or MAD, society hosts weekly workshops on iOS, Android and web development throughout the semester. These workshops are open to students of any major. While the workshops
cover similar topics, president of MAD Drew Romanyk said the conference is something special. “(MADcon) is kind of like a celebration,” Romanyk said. “The workshops help, but this is a powerhouse of innovation and knowledge. We’re trying to empower people, to open up new possibilities for them. This brings it all together.”
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The UT System is in the process of creating a biobank, a shared collection of medical data and tissue samples, with seven of its own academic institutions to use for medical research and scientific discovery. The UT System Health Biobank will join with the following seven academic and professional institutions in the UT System: UT Health Houston, UT Health San Antonio, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, UT Medical Branch, UT Southwestern, UT Health Northeast and UT Rio Grande Valley. Lauren Deschner, UT Health San Antonio graduate student, said it’s helpful for medical students to
have a bank of data and information at hand to build off of when working on short-term projects. “The objective of medical research is to advance treatments and medical technology and (find) ways to get people healthier faster or better with fewer side effects,” Deschner said. “The more resources we have as a school, and as a scientific community in general, the faster we can work towards those things.” The biobank initiative is part of the UT Health Care Enterprise, an effort under UT System Chancellor William McRaven’s vision to make Texas a stronger and healthier state while encouraging collaboration among
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