Free Republic

BRACKETTVILLE, Texas—The chaos caused by millions of illegal immigrants flooding across the southwest border under the Biden administration left scars on this border town. The constant high-speed chases, buzzing helicopters, screaming emergency sirens, hurried school lockdowns, torn barbed-wire fences, and decomposing bodies on ranches and along the Rio Grande all took their toll on Texas towns near the Mexican border. The border crisis drained resources and changed the lifestyle of Brackettville, a little town with two traffic light intersections in Kinney County. Residents of the county and beyond said the madness stopped almost overnight after President Donald Trump took office....

On February 26, 2024, the Richardson, TX City Council honored Marwan Marouf with a proclamation for his “contributions” to the Muslim community. Fast forward to 2025: ICE arrested him and deported him back to Jordan. The government’s reasons are damning: Marouf overstayed his visa for over a decade. He donated nearly $14,000 to the Holy Land Foundation – the same organization convicted in America’s largest terror-financing trial for funneling $12.4 million to Hamas. He provided material support and solicited funds for this Tier III terrorist organization. Marouf was the PR and fundraising director for the Muslim American Society (MAS) in...

BOSTON (AP) — A college student deported to Honduras while traveling for Thanksgiving in November must be returned to the United States within two weeks, a federal judge in Boston ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns issued an order that required the return of 19-year-old Babson College freshman Any Lucia Lopez Belloza by the end of February. ... Asked about the decision, the Department of Homeland Security e-mailed a statement saying Lopez Belloza received “full due process” and a final order of removal. The federal agency said she entered the U.S. in 2014 and that the removal order was...

A white youth who was falsely accused of committing a hate crime against his black classmate has been awarded $3.2 million after a Texas jury determined the incident was a hoax fabricated by the classmate’s money-grubbing mother and her race-hustling attorney. The scam unfolded in 2021, when Summer Smith — the mother of then-middle school student SeMarion Humphrey — and her lawyer, Kim T. Cole, accused Humphrey’s white classmate, Asher Vann, and his friends of shooting Humphrey with BB guns and forcing him to drink urine during a sleepover at Vann’s house in Plano, Texas, the Washington Free Beacon reported....

Aurora Innovation said it has tripled its driverless trucking network to 10 routes as it prepares to expand autonomous freight operations across the southern United States. The Pittsburgh-based company said its latest software release enables its Aurora Driver autonomous control system to operate on longer lanes, serve direct customer endpoints, and navigate a wider range of adverse weather conditions. The company touted these as key steps as the company moves toward scaling commercial operations. With the addition of Phoenix to its network, Aurora now operates driverless freight lanes between Dallas and Houston, Fort Worth and El Paso, El Paso and...

Kitco News) - In a historic shift for state level finance, Texas has officially moved from a passive storage model to an active, state run bullion supply chain. The rollout, announced live from the Texas State Capitol, introduces a first of its kind dot gov storefront that allows the public to purchase state branded gold and silver directly from the Comptroller office. The initiative marks the first time a U.S. state has facilitated a closed loop system for precious metals, bridging the gap between manufacturing, vaulting, and direct to consumer sales. Texas is the first state to facilitate a closed...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has a clear lead in the Lone Star State’s Senate Republican primary over incumbent John Cornyn — putting the two on a collision course for a May runoff, according to a new poll commissioned by Paxton’s principal campaign committee. The Pulse Decision Science survey found that 36% of likely GOP primary voters support Paxton, 27% back Cornyn and 15% prefer Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas). Another 22% said they were undecided about who to support.Early voting for the March 3 primary starts next week, with a runoff between the top two candidates set for May 26...

Two Pakistani nationals were indicted on Thursday for their roles in defrauding Medicare in a scheme conducted in Chicago, Illinois. The duo allegedly regularly billed “Medicare and private insurers” in excess of $10 million for “nonexistent healthcare services,” according to the Department of Justice. Kashif Iqbal and Burhan Mirza, and several other unnamed participants, “used nominee-owned laboratories and durable medical equipment providers to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare and private healthcare benefit programs for items and services not rendered. Mirza illegally obtained private identification information of individuals and providers as part of the fraud. He then used this data to...

WASHINGTON — The sudden and surprising airspace closure over El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday stemmed from the Pentagon's plans to test a laser for use in shooting down drones used by Mexican drug cartels, according to three people familiar with the situation who were granted anonymity to share sensitive details. That caused friction with the Federal Aviation Administration, which wanted to ensure commercial air safety and the two agencies sought to coordinate, according to two of the people. Despite a meeting scheduled later this month to discuss the issue, the Pentagon wanted to go ahead and test the laser, prompting...

Drones operated by Mexican drug cartels entered US airspace late Tuesday, forcing a brief closure of the skies over El Paso, Texas, a Trump administration official told The Post Wednesday morning. “Mexican cartel drones breached US airspace,” the official said. “The Department of War took action to disable the drones. The FAA and DOW have determined there is no threat to commercial travel.” The Federal Aviation Administration initially announced a 10-day restriction on air traffic over the border city, effective at 11:30 p.m. local time (1:30 a.m. ET Wednesday). Fewer than eight hours later, the FAA wrote on X: “The...

Republican officials and candidates in Texas have shifted their rhetorical attack lines from the border fears that dominated recent elections to the state’s growing Muslim population, with language that echoes the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric has unnerved many in the state’s Islamic community while sending signals to Republicans outside Texas who might be searching for rhetorical targets now that the nation’s southwestern border has grown quiet. Ads for Senator John Cornyn of Texas have touted his fight against “radical Islam.” Texas Republican lawmakers created a “Sharia-Free America Caucus” in Congress....

All flights to and from El Paso International Airport in Texas have been halted for “special security reasons,” the Federal Aviation Administration said early Wednesday. content. arrow “No pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas covered by this NOTAM,” the FAA said, using the abbreviation for Notice to Airmen. It listed the reason as “temporary flight restrictions for Special Security Reasons.”

Texas Senator John Cornyn has provided financial support to the campaigns of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski and former Utah Senator Mitt Romney, both known for their votes to convict former President Donald Trump during his impeachment trials. Federal Election Commission (FEC) records reveal contributions from Cornyn’s Victory Committee to both senators’ campaigns after their high-profile votes to convict President Trump. According to FEC filings, the Cornyn Victory Committee donated $367,763.46 to Lisa Murkowski’s campaign for U.S. Senate. These contributions followed Murkowski’s 2021 vote to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial, led by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, related to the...

Unusual shut down if a fairly major airport for 10 days....national security? Terror threat? Or ???

The House this week is set to take up the SAVE America Act (the SAVE Act 2.0), an election-integrity measure that some Senate Republicans can’t seem to get behind even though the vast majority of Americans already have. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office confirms the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register and photo identification to vote in federal elections, will hit the floor on Tuesday. While Democrats will spend hours making a mockery of truth and reality in opposing it, the legislation is expected to pass mostly along party lines — as the...

A 23-year-old British woman who was shot dead by her father had argued with him about Donald Trump earlier that day, an inquest has heard. Lucy Harrison, a fashion buyer from Warrington, Cheshire, was staying with her father, Kris Harrison, and his family at their home in Prosper, Texas, in January last year. Ms Harrison's boyfriend, Sam Littler, who made the trip with her, told Cheshire Coroner's Court she would often become upset with her father when he spoke about his gun ownership. He said that on the morning of 10 January - when the couple were due to fly...

Republican candidates are beating Democratic counterparts in the Texas U.S. Senate race regardless of who de candidates are, according to a new poll. The survey, conducted by the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs, showed that Republicans John Cornyn and Ken Paxton would beat their Democratic counterparts Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico regardless of the matchup.

“I always tell people the day Latinos, African-American, Asian and other communities realize that they share the same oppressor is the day we start winning. Because we are the majority in this country. We have the ability to take over this country,” State Rep. ‘Gene’ Yuanzhi Wu, who serves as the Texas Democrat House Minority Leader, recently declared. Who is oppressing Wu? The Chinese immigrant came here from Guangzhou, graduated from law school and became one of the top officials in the state. Good luck to any American who wants to move to China, become a lawyer and run for...

Texas has created another new national record, this time for the most students applying to a new school choice program on the first day it launched. Texas’ first school choice program launched on Wednesday with 20,000 students applying by noon. Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock announced the successful launch of Texas’ new Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) stating that nearly 8,000 applications were filed in the first hour. By noon, more than 20,000 students had applied “for the largest year-one school choice initiative in the nation,” The Center Square reported. More than 35,000 applications had been received by Wednesday evening on...

Firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s Senate campaign is having issues with her stance on the issues. Two months into her long-shot bid for statewide office, the Texas Dem’s website was found riddled with multiple faux pas, including instructions to “write out your bullet points here” in the mental health section of her campaign platform and a bizarre inclusion of gun control policy on her Social Security page. Crockett had just launched a series of policy pages last week. Both gaffes have since been fixed. The campaign website blunders were first flagged by a senior CNN reporter, Edward-Isaac Dovere, who spotted the...