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This is the Texas Minute for Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

New Poll Shows Trump Expanding His Lead with Texas GOP Voters

• Three months out from the Republican primary, new polling shows Donald Trump has increased his lead with voters. Brandon Waltens has the details.
       

• A new poll shows Trump is supported by 61 percent of Texas GOP primary voters. Coming in tied for second place are Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley with 11 percent each.
        

• The other candidates in the presidential hunt are drawing single-digit support.
       

• In a head-to-head between Trump and DeSantis, Trump leads 63 percent to 22 percent, with 14 percent undecided. The former president is even more dominant when paired against Haley, polling at 70 percent to Haley’s 20 percent, with 10 percent undecided.

Illegal Aliens Processed ‘Virtually’ at Southwest Border as Invasion Continues

• As the Biden administration’s border crisis continues and law enforcement is stretched thin, Sydnie Henry reports U.S. Customs and Border Protection has resorted to "virtually" processing illegal aliens.
   
• According to Rodney Scott, the former head of the Border Patrol, “virtual processing is like a Zoom call or a Skype call." While an agent in another part of the country interviewing the illegal alien can take down biographical and biometric information, Scott said a lot is missed.
•     
• Overwhelmed Border Patrol stations—including in Eagle Pass, Texas—suspended vehicle processing last week in order to allow more agents to process illegal aliens.
      
• During Fiscal Year 2023, the CBP's "Del Rio sector" in south Texas saw 393,226 encounters—14 times the population of Eagle Pass. Meanwhile, only one month into Fiscal Year 2024, the sector has already seen 38,211 encounters.
       
• Sources within CBP have told news outlets there were more than 12,000 encounters at the southwest border on Tuesday this week—the highest single-day total ever recorded.

Human Trafficking Jumps 21 Percent in Fort Worth

• New data published by the Fort Worth Police Department shows human trafficking incidents are on the rise in the city. Emily Medeiros breaks down what it means.
       
• First covered by The Dallas Express, the FWPD's data shows a 21 percent increase in human trafficking incidents logged between January and September 2023, as compared to 2022.
       
• Selene Rodriguez, a policy director for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told Texas Scorecard that the increase in human trafficking can be linked to the Biden administration’s failing border policies and the Mexican cartels. 
       
• According to Rodriguez, the Biden policies are victimizing the illegal border crossers and giving cartels and human traffickers millions of new victims to enslave in their scheme.

District Settles Lawsuit with Dad Banned From Kids’ Campuses

• The McKinney Independent School District has settled the federal lawsuit brought against them by a dad whose children were students. The ISD had banned him “forever” from district properties over public comments he made during a school board meeting. Erin Anderson has the story.
          
• Officials didn't like Samuel Hall's comments criticizing the school board's failure to remove sexually explicit books from students’ libraries. His children were students in the district, and their "ban" caused him to miss a year of their school activities. (The Texas Education Agency eventually dismissed the ban.)
         
• “My prayer is that this case can be an example and encouragement to parents that they do not have to sacrifice their constitutional rights when school boards overstep their authority and illegally trespass parents for expressing views that do not align with their own,” said Hall.

Texas Files Lawsuit Over Biden Administration Censorship

• Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that the State of Texas, The Daily Wire, and The Federalist are suing the U.S. Department of State and its secretary Antony Blinken for censoring American media. Check out the report from Will Biagini.
       

• Paxton argues that the State Department has routinely intervened in the news market through its Global Engagement Center—which was initially created to combat foreign propaganda. Instead, the lawsuit contends, the center has weaponized its authority and infringed on the First Amendment rights of media companies by funding censorship technology.
        

• The lawsuit explains that The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and other media outlets were branded as “unreliable” and “risky” by government-funded and government-promoted enterprises.
       

• “I am proud to lead the fight to save Americans’ constitutional rights from Joe Biden’s tyrannical government,” said Paxton.

Quote-Unquote

“There’s nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer.”

– Jimmy Doolittle​

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