Free Republic

The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can resume building a border wall through the Big Bend region of West Texas. The justices voted 8-1 on Monday to lift a federal judge’s order that had stopped construction across the sector for more than a month. The unsigned five-page decision said a 1996 immigration law gives the Homeland Security secretary wide room to waive environmental rules and that Congress wrote it to favor fast construction over the harm the challengers described. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only one who said she would have turned the administration down. She did...

EL PASO, TX — After the political winds ushered in sweeping changes to the Lone Star State last night, with radical Democrats taking power in what had been a staunchly conservative stronghold, millions of Texans were seen crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico. As Democrats prepared to give Texas a drastic makeover, longtime conservative residents of the state packed up their most treasured possessions and prepared to flee in search of a better life somewhere south of the border. "We're setting off to find a place where we can live in freedom," said conservative Texan Derek Johnson. "I've got a...

The waterway’s decline poses an existential threat to Elephant Butte, N.M., and surrounding farms. ‘This place is going to turn into a ghost town.’ ELEPHANT BUTTE, N.M.—Three decades ago, a rare event drew hundreds of people from miles away to the Elephant Butte reservoir, this state’s largest lake. The reservoir, which supplied drinking water to thousands and nourished vast acres of farmland, had swelled from the Rio Grande and begun to overflow. Jim Paxon remembers the roar as water cascaded down the dam’s spillway, tossing mist into the air and churning the ground below. Those days are long gone. One...

Roughly 500 troops are deploying to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley this week, sources confirmed to NewsNation, as federal forces step up border operations following a shooting incident involving the Coast Guard. Video obtained by NewsNation shows troops being dropped onto islands in the sector from Chinook helicopters. The deployment comes days after Coast Guard personnel came under gunfire from suspected cartel members on the Rio Grande. The Coast Guard said Coast Guard Forces Rio Grande personnel encountered gunfire from the Mexican border near Garceno, Texas, on Saturday while conducting joint interdiction operations with federal partners. Personnel returned fire. No injuries...

At least seven people were killed and multiple left injured after a car struck a group of people outside a migrant shelter in Brownsville, Texas. Police initially said they believed the driver of the Range Rover 'intentionally' plowed into pedestrians waiting at the bus stop outside the Ozanam Center at 8.20am on Sunday, but later clarified they are still investigating the incident. The driver, who witnesses said was yelling insults at the group before accelerating towards the curb, is undergoing testing to see if he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the tragic crash. Police arrested...

Texas installed more buoys in the Rio Grande today to stop illegal immigration. I look forward to continuing to work closely with President Trump to secure the border. AMERICA IS BACK!

BREAKING: Gov. Greg Abbott is installing more deterrent buoys along the Rio Grande! Texas is protecting its borders!!!

An migrant who was arrested at the border for crossing illegally before being cut loose has been charged with raping a five-year-old girl on Long Island. Wilson Castillo Diaz, 26, of Westbury, is accused of raping the young victim at an undisclosed location on October 16, according to Nassau County Police. Diaz, who illegally crossed the US border near Rio Grande, Texas in April 2014, was arrested by US Border Patrol agents and then released.

...The convoys are known as “Trump Trains”, and though they have appeared in other states they have taken off in the Rio Grande valley. They symbolize the political drama that is unfolding in this overwhelmingly Hispanic community that has for generations been umbilically tied to the Democratic party: the seemingly unassailable rise of Trump.... An opinion poll from April conducted by the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation (TxHPF) found that Trump was leading his then presumptive rival Biden in South Texas by 44% to 36%. That was an astounding statistic given the region’s previously lock-tight Democratic record... Religion is another critical...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Texas can keep the buoys Governor Greg Abbott ordered installed in the Rio Grande. The Biden-Harris administration sued the State of Texas to stop Texas from placing the barriers in the river that separates Mexico from the U.S. “Biden tried to remove them. I fought to keep them in the water,” Abbott posted on social media. “That is exactly where they will stay.” ...

County officials in Rio Grande, Colorado have terminated their contract with Dominion and all funding for their voting machines have been rescinded

A federal appeals court on Wednesday reversed an order requiring Texas to move a floating barrier on the Rio Grande that drew backlash from Mexico — the latest development in legal battles between the Biden administration and Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over control of migration at the border. In December, a divided panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with a federal district judge in Texas who said the buoys must be moved. On Wednesday, the court vacated the panel's 2-1 ruling after a majority of its 17 active judges voted to rehear the case....

This is a tragedy, and the state bears responsibility,” U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said in a statement. AUSTIN — Three migrants, including two children, drowned in Eagle Pass on Friday night after Texas troopers and National Guard members would not “grant access” to the individuals while “in distress,” according to U.S. Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo. The news of the drownings comes while the state is in a standoff with the federal government after Texas authorities took control of Shelby Park, a municipal park in Eagle Pass on the Texas-Mexico border, on Wednesday night — against the wishes...

The newest video shows the migrants crossing the border near Eagle Pass through multiple locations after getting past the Rio Grande. In the first part of the video, the migrants, lined up in droves next to a long, chain-link fence appearing ready to be processed. The second half of the clip sees several physically swimming their way across the Rio Grande before piling past a barbed wire fence and in some cases, making camp on the shores to dry their clothes. A border patrol agent told Fox News that 'the TCOs (Transnational Criminal Orgs) know what they’re doing.' Transnational Criminal...

Texas must remove a floating barrier it placed at the Rio Grande to deter immigrants from illegally crossing the United States-Mexico border, an appeals court ruled Friday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled 2-1 to decline a request by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) to reverse a lower court decision that had ordered it to remove the 1,000-foot-long string of buoys placed at the river in July near Eagle Pass, Texas. The decision can still be appealed, but it marks a victory for the Biden administration's efforts to remove the barriers, arguing they unlawfully block navigation and...

For Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, the operation was a small victory in the much larger battle against human traffickers.. In the fight against Mexican cartels, Texas law enforcement recently took control of a dangerous island used by human traffickers. The Epoch Times spoke to Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who identified Fronton Island as possibly “the most violent part” of the Texas–Mexico border. Belonging to Texas, Fronton Island is an island in the Rio Grande River. According to the General Land Office, “Fronton Island has been a hot spot for drug and human trafficking and dangerous cartel activity in...

EAGLE PASS, Texas — Border Patrol agents apprehended approximately 7,000 migrants during the past three days, according to sources operating within U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This includes the approximately 3,000 migrants crossing on Wednesday morning. Breitbart Texas traveled to Piedras Negras, Coahuila, on Wednesday to observe migrants making their way from staging areas to the Mexican bank of the Rio Grande. The video shows the mostly Venezuelan migrants making their way through busy streets and into the brush before entering the water to cross to Eagle Pass, Texas.

A federal appeals court Thursday put on hold a judge's order from earlier this week requiring Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to remove a floating barrier from the middle of the Rio Grande. The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals allowed Abbott, a Republican, to leave in place for now the 1,000-foot barrier the state installed to deter illegal migrant crossings. The order was issued by a three-judge panel of two Democratic appointees and a Republican appointee. Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David Ezra had ordered that the barrier moved out of the main waterway to the bank of the Rio Grande...

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration responded Wednesday to “flat-out wrong” claims from the Mexican government that faulted the river buoy barrier for the recent deaths of two migrants attempting to cross the border. The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the first to inform the public of the deaths and linked them to a buoy barrier in the Rio Grande River that Texas installed in early July to deter illegal migrant crossings. Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, responded in a statement on Wednesday claiming that the barrier had nothing to do with the tragic deaths. “The Mexican government...

The Justice Department on Monday sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over a newly installed floating barrier on the Rio Grande that is the Republican’s latest aggressive tactic to try to stop migrants from crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. The lawsuit asks a federal judge in Austin to force Texas to remove a roughly 1,000-foot (305-meter) line of bright orange, wrecking ball-sized buoys that the Biden administration says raises humanitarian and environmental concerns. The suit claims that Texas unlawfully installed the barrier without permission between the border cities of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico. The buoys are the latest...