Stories

Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Sep 23, 2026· Updated

An ICE Officer Shoots a DoorDash Driver in North Austin, Then Agents Move Him Into Federal Custody Before His Wife Can See Him — Greg Casar Says "The Horror Has Come to Our City," and Austin's Mayor Says "Austinites Have a Right to Know What Happened"

Just before 1 p.m. on Sunday, September 20, 2026, an ICE officer shot and wounded Wilber Rafael Garcés Perez, 28, a Venezuelan DoorDash driver, during a vehicle stop and pursuit in North Austin. ICE said it had targeted his car over a license-plate check tied to a final removal order; his attorney says he entered the country legally and held a valid work permit. Garcés Perez called his wife at 12:30 p.m. to tell her he had been shot. He was hospitalized in serious but stable condition, then moved by federal agents to an undisclosed location — without being allowed to see his wife first — before landing in ICE custody pending removal. Rep. Greg Casar posted the same morning that "the horror has come to our city," and hours later sent DHS a formal letter demanding release of the unedited body-camera footage, preservation of evidence, and a briefing for Congress by September 28. Rep. Joaquin Castro said "Trump has allowed ICE to flood our streets and put our communities in harms way again and again and Governor Abbott is complicit every time." Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said "Austinites have a right to know what happened." Texas Senate candidate James Talarico said past incidents show "this agency cannot be trusted to report all the facts," and called for a full independent investigation with all footage released. DHS, without naming Garcés Perez, said he had a final removal order and entered during the Biden administration; Homeland Security Investigations, with FBI assistance, is leading the review.

“ICE has become an abusive, rogue organization. They said that Homeland Security was going to do a joint investigation with the FBI. Homeland Security, at this point, has zero credibility.”
Joaquin Castro (D-TX) · Sep 23, 2026

Sep 17, 2026· Updated

The Republican Nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner Posts a Photo of Asian American Students Cheering at a Longhorns Game and Writes "The Problem Is Now Obviously Far Worse Than Anyone Imagined" — John Cornyn Asks Whether Republicans Will "Look the Other Way," the Texas House Speaker Says It "Crossed the Line," and Greg Abbott Says Only "That Is Not My Message"

On Sunday, September 13, 2026, Bo French — the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner and a former Tarrant County GOP chair — posted a photo of seemingly Asian American students celebrating in the stands at Texas's comeback win over Ohio State the night before, writing: "I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn't believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined." He added that the scene showed "how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners." Sen. John Cornyn called it racism and challenged other Republican officials to condemn it; French answered that Cornyn and "the other America Last losers are mad that Texas Republicans are starting to put America First." Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, former Speaker Dade Phelan and state Reps. Jared Patterson and Drew Darby — who chairs the committee that oversees the Railroad Commission and warned that the Legislature's trust in the agency "can be revisited" — also condemned the post, while state Rep. Andy Hopper attacked Cornyn instead. Gov. Greg Abbott distanced himself without naming French. James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee, challenged his opponent Ken Paxton to "condemn this blatant racism," and Paxton answered that he condemns "racism in all its forms" before turning the charge on Talarico. French faces Democratic state Rep. Jon Rosenthal on November 3.

“He's an embarrassment to the Republican Party, and he's going to drag the whole ticket down because of his racist comments. … I may just leave it blank.”
John Cornyn (R-TX) · Sep 17, 2026

Texas Lets an ICE Agent Charged With Four Felonies in Minnesota Walk Out of Jail Rather Than Extradite Him — and Minnesota’s Attorney General Says Greg Abbott Has Turned Texas Into "a Sanctuary State for Accused Felons"

On Jan. 14, 2026, during Operation Metro Surge, ICE agent Christian Castro fired his gun through the closed front door of a north Minneapolis duplex and hit Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant, in the leg. Castro told investigators the men inside had assaulted him with a broom and a snow shovel; surveillance footage contradicted that account, and the assault charges filed against the two men were dropped. A Hennepin County judge found probable cause that Castro committed four counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of falsely reporting a crime. He was arrested by the Texas Rangers on May 29 and held in the Carrizalez-Rucker jail in Cameron County. A governor's warrant for Castro's extradition sat on Gov. Greg Abbott's desk from June 3 forward, unsigned. Abbott said he had "serious doubts" Castro qualified as a fugitive under the Extradition Clause. Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Abbott on Aug. 18 to compel him to sign it. On Aug. 26 U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. ruled the suit was not ripe and declined to intervene; Abbott answered Ellison on social media that "you guys are such bad lawyers." Texas law bars holding an extradition subject more than 90 days, and at 7 a.m. on Aug. 27 the Cameron County sheriff released Castro. DHS said he had been suspended without pay pending a federal investigation. The standoff is the first time in this administration that two states have gone to federal court against each other over whether one must hand over a federal immigration officer to face state criminal charges — a fight over the Constitution's Extradition Clause with an accused shooter now at liberty and Minnesota's case stalled.

“I've said all along that Christian Castro would face justice in Minnesota. And now that he's finally turned himself in in Texas, he soon will.”
Keith Ellison (D-MN) · Sep 3, 2026

Texas's Third-Largest County Cuts 92 Election Day Polling Places Nine Weeks Before the Midterms — Three Republicans Outvote Two Democrats After Eight Hours and More Than 100 Speakers, and a Commissioner Calls It a "Modern Day Poll Tax"

On September 1, 2026 the Tarrant County Commissioners Court voted 3-2 to run the November midterms with 224 Election Day polling places — 92 fewer than the 316 the county used in the 2022 midterms. County Judge Tim O'Hare and Commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez, all Republicans, voted yes. Commissioners Alisa Simmons and Roderick Miles Jr., both Democrats, voted no. Tarrant County is the third-largest county in Texas and the largest urban county in the state that Republicans still control. It is also the county Democrats have spent a decade trying to flip. The vote came at the end of a meeting that ran more than eight hours and heard from more than 100 speakers, most of them opposed, with voting-rights advocates and representatives of some 30 civic groups rallying outside the courthouse that morning. Fort Worth's City Council had unanimously asked the county in August to reconsider the reductions and to distribute whatever sites remained fairly across the county. The Republican majority defended the consolidation as an efficiency and staffing decision — O'Hare said no Tarrant County voter should ever feel short of time to vote, and Krause called the demand for a specific number of sites arbitrary. Democrats on the court and James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, cast it as a deliberate narrowing of access: Miles told the majority they were creating "modern day poll taxes," and Simmons said the decision was "not about cost" but "about power."

“There's no argument to that that you can come up with other than you want to be able to have more in your precinct.”
Tim O'Hare (R-TX) · Sep 1, 2026

Two Fatal ICE Shootings in Houston and Maine Trigger Senate Demands for Body Cameras and Vetting Answers

Two people were killed by federal immigration officers in July 2026, neither of whom was the target of the operation that killed them. On July 7, ICE officers shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national, during a traffic stop in Houston as he was on his way to work. On July 13, officers shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national, in his car near his home in Biddeford, Maine, after ICE attempted a vehicle stop; DHS said the officer fired "fearing for public safety," while Sen. Angus King's office said Durán Guerrero was not the target of the warrant. The Associated Press subsequently reported that the ICE officer who fired in Maine, David Brouillette, had a documented history of serious mental health problems and violent behavior toward family members recorded in family court files. On July 20, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) led a letter signed by 38 Democratic senators demanding that DHS explain its vetting and training of new agents and its vehicle pursuit policies, and calling for body cameras to be issued to all officers. ICE subsequently pulled back on vehicle stops. At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since the start of the administration's crackdown.

“We have the permanent cameras, but we also have Motorola [that] is working with us on the mics that we use.”
Markwayne Mullin (R) · Sep 1, 2026

Aug 30, 2026· Updated

Trump Signs an Executive Order Creating a "U.S. Space Academy" on Par With West Point — and Colorado's Senator Answers That the Country Already Has One, "It's Called the U.S. Air Force Academy"

On August 28, 2026, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, President Trump awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the Artemis II crew and then signed an executive order establishing a U.S. Space Academy — a service academy he said would rank alongside West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, feeding graduates into the Space Force, NASA and the commercial space industry. The order does not actually create an academy. It creates a Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy, chaired by the NASA administrator, with 120 days to recommend a governance structure, a curriculum, a location and the congressional action that would be required to stand the institution up. Trump said a site would be chosen "very shortly," and noted lawmakers were already lobbying for their own states. The reaction split along predictable lines but with an unusual geographic overlay. Rep. Brian Babin, whose Texas district includes Johnson Space Center, pitched Houston. Sen. John Hickenlooper — whose state hosts the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, the institution that already commissions Space Force officers — called the plan "duplicative, costly, and unserious." Rep. George Whitesides, the former Virgin Galactic CEO, took the proposal seriously enough to itemize what is missing from it: no congressional representation on the commission, no stated purpose distinct from existing universities, and no answer on where roughly $1 billion a year would come from. A congressionally mandated oversight body, the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, had already recommended against a standalone institution earlier in 2026, suggesting a dedicated Space Force facility on the existing Colorado Springs campus instead.

“Another bold step by @POTUS to ensure America leads in space for generations to come. Let’s bring it to Texas!”
Brian Babin (R-TX) · Aug 30, 2026

Aug 25, 2026· Updated

ICE Arrests a 5-Year-Old on His Way to a Soccer Game and Sends Him to the Country’s Only Family Detention Camp — a Federal Judge Appoints Outside Monitors, and ICE Blocks a Congressman From Visiting the Boy

On August 16, 2026, federal immigration agents stopped Victor Martinez Nieto in Austin, Texas, as he drove his five-year-old son, Liam Tadeo, to a soccer game. Video of the stop shows the crying child holding his handcuffed father's hand. Both were taken to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley — the only family detention facility in the United States, run under contract by the private prison company CoreCivic. Liam was supposed to start kindergarten that week. It was the second time in 2026 that a five-year-old named Liam was taken to Dilley. In January, ICE agents detained Liam Conejo Ramos on his walk home from preschool in Columbia Heights, Minnesota; a federal judge ordered him and his father released at the end of that month. The August arrest landed in the middle of a widening fight over the facility. The Texas Tribune reported on August 12 that federal data showed many children at Dilley had been held 100 days or longer, far past the 20-day limit set by the Flores settlement, and that in the first year after the camp reopened in March 2025 the administration held roughly 3,000 children there, more than half of them beyond 20 days. On August 18, Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee appointed a special master, Andrea Sheridan Ordin, and an independent monitor, Dr. Paul Wise, with authority to inspect facilities, review records and interview detainees — citing minors confined for 50, 91 and even 323 days. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), who had led 111 House Democrats in a late-July letter demanding DHS shut Dilley down and terminate the CoreCivic contract, tried to visit Liam Tadeo and was turned away: ICE said the boy's father had not given permission, though Castro's office said it had obtained the mother's. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, demanded the release of Liam and of at least 112 children then held at the camp. DHS and CoreCivic have said Dilley meets federal detention standards and undergoes regular audits.

“Trump is using children as bait and leverage to fuel his mass deportation machine.”
Gregorio Casar (D-TX) · Aug 25, 2026

One State Sues Another Over an ICE Agent: Minnesota Takes Greg Abbott to Court for Refusing to Extradite the Officer Charged With Shooting Into a Minneapolis Home

On August 18, 2026, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to force him to extradite Christian Castro, an ICE agent charged in Hennepin County with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. Castro is accused of firing his gun at the front door of an occupied Minneapolis home on January 14, 2026, during Operation Metro Surge, striking a Venezuelan man in the leg, and then lying about the circumstances of the shooting. A Hennepin County judge found probable cause on both sets of charges. Castro was arrested in Texas on May 29, 2026. Gov. Tim Walz's extradition warrant has sat with Abbott's office since June 3 unsigned. Extradition between states is ordinarily a ministerial act under the Extradition Clause of the Constitution and the federal Extradition Act; Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said she had "never heard of anything taking this long." Abbott, asked about the suit at an Austin news conference the same day, tied his refusal to unrelated grievances against Minnesota, saying he did not trust Gov. Walz and would not respond "until they step up and do what's right." Ellison warned that Castro could walk free as early as August 26 if the warrant is not signed. The case is a rare state-versus-state clash arising directly from federal immigration enforcement.

“Christian Castro has been charged with breaking the law in Minnesota. He must face justice in Minnesota. Gov. Abbott should have granted Gov. Walz’s extradition request long ago and is required to do so now.”
Keith Ellison (D-MN) · Aug 18, 2026

After Bulldozers Reach Santa Elena Canyon, CBP Halts Border Barrier Construction Inside Big Bend National Park — With a Republican Senator, a Republican Border Sheriff and the Texas Governor All Against the Project

On August 16, 2026, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott announced he was pausing all construction activity for the border barrier inside Big Bend National Park while he traveled to West Texas for what he called a personal, on-the-ground evaluation. Video of crews clearing pristine Chihuahuan Desert wilderness near Santa Elena Canyon had circulated for days, and the project was already facing litigation, including a suit by the Lipan Apache and a petition for a temporary restraining order filed by Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez. The opposition was not partisan. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) had written to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on August 7 asking him to halt work until stakeholders were consulted, citing a bipartisan group of Texas border sheriffs, county judges and private landowners, and arguing that Big Bend's 1,000-foot riverbank cliffs and canyon terrain are their own deterrent. Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a Republican, said he had been urging Scott to visit for months because the original plan was flawed. Gov. Greg Abbott said Mullin had assured him no barrier of any kind would go up in the park at all, and that drones and fiber optics would secure the area instead. Democrats treated the pause as incomplete and, in Abbott's case, belated. Gutierrez called it a good thing but pressed for a full stop, accusing CBP of having characterized the clearing already done as mere surveying. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa said Abbott had known about the project for months and said nothing while the bulldozers worked.

“Good thing, for sure.”
Roland Gutierrez (D-TX) · Aug 17, 2026

Oklahoma Becomes the Third Republican-Led State to Move Against the Country’s Largest Muslim Civil Rights Group — Stitt Orders an "Intelligence-Based Assessment" of CAIR and Asks Washington to Designate It a Terrorist Organization

On August 12, 2026, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order directing the state Departments of Public Safety and Homeland Security to conduct an "intelligence-based assessment" of whether the Muslim Brotherhood, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or people acting in their name pose a terrorist or public-safety threat in Oklahoma. If investigators find evidence of support for those organizations, the order directs state law enforcement to recommend that the federal government designate them as foreign terrorist organizations. Oklahoma is the third Republican-led state to act. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR "foreign terrorist organizations" and "transnational criminal organizations" by proclamation on November 18, 2025, a designation that also bars them from acquiring land in Texas; CAIR chapters sued, arguing the proclamation chilled protected speech. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a similar executive order on December 8, 2025. On March 4, 2026, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee temporarily enjoined the Florida order on First Amendment grounds, finding it operated as a prior restraint by threatening private parties with loss of government benefits for associating with CAIR. Florida's legislature responded in March 2026 with HB 1471, empowering the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to label organizations as domestic or foreign terrorist groups, and DeSantis used that law against CAIR-Florida in July 2026. The state actions follow a November 2025 executive order from President Trump aimed at designating certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as foreign terrorist organizations. The U.S. State Department has never designated the Muslim Brotherhood or CAIR as terrorist organizations. Oklahoma State Senate Democratic Leader Julia Kirt condemned Stitt's order, noting it was issued without evidence and warning it raises the risk of hate crimes.

“What we do know is that CAIR works to protect the civil rights of Oklahoma Muslims in the face of ongoing profiling and discrimination.”
Julia Kirt (D-OK) · Aug 13, 2026

Rep. Tony Gonzales Resigns Amid Affair and Ethics Probe

Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas announced his resignation from Congress on April 13, 2026, hours before a bipartisan expulsion vote was expected. The House Ethics Committee had opened an investigation on March 5 into an affair Gonzales had with a staff member who later died by suicide after setting herself on fire. Gonzales initially denied the affair for months before admitting to it on a podcast, stating both he and the staffer had been married at the time. His resignation came the same day as Rep. Eric Swalwell's (D-CA), as Congress confronted dual sexual misconduct scandals across party lines.

“There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all. When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office. It has been my privilege to serve the great people of Texas.”
Tony Gonzales (R-TX) · Apr 13, 2026