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This is the Texas Minute for Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan [[link removed]]

DPS Encounters More Than 200 Illegal Aliens in Maverick County Officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety encountered more than 200 illegal aliens at the border earlier this week, including children traveling alone. Emily Medeiros has the details [[link removed]].

The group included 60 unaccompanied minors and six special interest aliens—individuals who potentially pose a national security risk. The SIAs were from Mali in West Africa and Angola in Southern Africa.

Officers interviewed a 2-year-old girl who said she was from El Salvador. The girl claimed she arrived by herself and that her parents were residing in the country. She had a piece of paper with a phone number and a name.RELATED NEWS At the Edinburg airport on Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott and the Trump administration's incoming Border Czar, Tom Homan, served dinner rolls to the soldiers, guardsmen, and state troopers working to deter and detain illegal aliens [[link removed]]. “We can guarantee it: President Trump will secure the border. He did it before, and he’ll do it again,” said Homan. “President Trump is going to shut down the border.”

He also said the administration remains committed to a mass deportation program. “If we don’t remove them, what the hell are we doing?”

“What I know from the very top levels of government through the streets of the people in the Rio Grande Valley, up to the Corpus area, to Houston, to Dallas, and across the state, that is how much our fellow Texans appreciate you, your service, and what you’ve done to stand up [in] an unprecedented response to deter, to deny, illegal entry into our country.” – Greg Abbott [[link removed]] Dawn Buckingham Announces ‘Jocelyn Initiative’ to Help Trump Secure the Border Standing on property in Starr County recently purchased by her agency, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham announced [[link removed]] on Tuesday new efforts to aid in securing the border. She also announced that the 1,400-acre property—and others owned by the General Land Office—would be made available to the incoming Trump administration for deportation facilities.

The program, deemed “the Jocelyn Initiative,” will be named after Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl that two illegal aliens are accused of murdering earlier this year in Houston. Her mother, Alexis Nungaray, was present at the announcement.

Buckingham said the GLO is committed to helping state and federal authorities “gain complete operational control” of the porous southern border.

“Texas has been standing in the gap with the federal government abdicating their constitutional duty to defend our border under Biden,” said Buckingham [[link removed]]. “It is time for everyone to step up, be a good partner, and show the rest of the country how it’s done.” Paxton Files Brief in Support of Child Protection Law With US Supreme Court Addie Hovland reports [[link removed]] on Attorney General Ken Paxton's latest effort to uphold Texas’ law requiring the use of age verification measures to protect kids from pornographic material online.

At issue is a 2023 law that is being fought by distributors of pornography in federal court. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law, finding that it does not violate the First Amendment. The plaintiffs have appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

“Let me put this simply: these companies do not have a right to expose children to pornography.” — Ken Paxton [[link removed]] Lawmakers Seek to Prohibit Explicit Books in School Libraries As the legislative session approaches, lawmakers have filed legislation to eliminate explicit books from public school libraries. Valerie Muñoz has the story [[link removed]].

In 2023, State Rep. Jared Patterson (R-Frisco) authored the READER Act, which required vendors to rate their books for explicit material before selling them to schools. The law passed, but a federal appeals court blocked the rating mechanism.

In response, Patterson has filed legislation outlining how school library materials would be regulated and reviewed to prevent inappropriate content from being accessible to children. The measure would allow parents to request a review of library materials by the State Board of Education.

Patterson is also seeking to remove an exemption in Texas law allowing obscene material to be shown to children under a “scientific, educational, governmental, or other similar” justification.

In the Senate, Bob Hall (R-Edgewood) seeks to change the legal definition of “harmful material.” Under his proposal, a book in school libraries would be deemed harmful if it contains a single obscene section. Taxing Trends in Rusk County Include Significant Changes In the past three years, tax rates across various entities in Rusk County have shown notable shifts and, in at least one instance, have erupted into controversy. Daniel Greer breaks down [[link removed]] the numbers as part of a new ongoing series examining local governments seeking to lighten—or add to—property tax burdens. 🔒 Donate to Texas Scorecard 🔒 [[link removed]] Number of the Day

65,934

Estimated population of Starr County as of July 1, 2023.

[Source: U.S. Census Bureau]

Quote-Unquote

"You can’t be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy."

– Ronald Reagan​

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