AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Several city officials and sheriffs around the United States said Tuesday that a Trump administration report aimed at shaming them over so-called “sanctuary” policies includes wrong or misleading information about recent arrests of immigrants or the policies in their local jails.
The pushback was not just from liberal local governments that are at odds with President Donald Trump over immigration crackdowns and his promise to deport “bad dudes” living legally in the United States. In Texas, the elected Republican sheriff of conservative Williamson County said his jail didn’t refuse four recent immigration detainer requests as claimed.
Sheriff Robert Chody called the report from U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement “misleading.” City and county officials in Oregon, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania also either disputed how the report characterized their handling of immigrant arrests or challenged some of the 206 listed cases of immigrants said to have been released from custody despite requests from federal agents.
The list was prompted by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January that called on the government to document which local jurisdictions aren’t cooperating with federal efforts to find and deport immigrants in the country illegally.
“They cast a very broad net in who they included in this list. We’re all still trying to figure out what is accomplished by this list and also how it’s going to be used,” said Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza. Rhode Island generally does not honor most ICE detainer requests, but Elorza said Providence appeared to have been included over a 2011 non-binding city resolution that he says wasn’t about detainers.
ICE has already acknowledged some mistakes: Hours after the report was released Monday, the agency corrected 14 rejected detainers in Texas that were mistakenly listed from the Travis County State Jail. That facility is run by the state prison system and not Travis County, which is home to liberal Austin and had roughly two-thirds of the total number of cases on the list.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has blocked $1.5 million to Travis County after the newly elected Democratic sheriff announced after Trump’s inauguration that her jails would no longer honor all detainer requests. Abbott called the DHS report “deeply disturbing” and used it to rally his call for a statewide ban on so-called “sanctuary cities” in Texas.
The report wasn’t the only ICE concern this week for Texas officials. A federal magistrate judge said in open court this week that ICE officials told him that a recent immigration sweep in Austin was set off by the change in Travis County’s immigrant detention policy. ICE has previously said the operations in Austin and other cities were business as usual.
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SENATE APPROVES PLAN TO PHASE OUT KEY BUSINESS TAX
The Texas Senate has approved a bill seeking to gradually phase out taxes levied on businesses during future legislative sessions - when the state potentially has shaken off the oil price slump and seen its economy begin booming again.
The measure was approved quickly and without debate Tuesday and now goes to the House.
Its sponsor, Flower Mound Republican Sen. Jane Nelson, said conservatives have long clamored for ending the so-called “franchise tax” on business, and that her proposal puts it on “a glide path” toward elimination.
The bill mandates cuts to the franchise tax during future budget cycles when Texas’ economy is projected to grow by at least 5 percent.
Low oil prices means the state wouldn’t qualify this year, but the proposal could have sweeping impacts on future budgets.
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SENATE OKS BILL SEEKING TO SLOW LOCAL PROPERTY TAX INCREASES
The Texas Senate has approved a plan designed to slow the increase of local property taxes as Republicans scramble to deliver on fiscally conservative promises despite a state budget crunch.
Tuesday’s 18-12 vote sends to the state House a bill by Houston Republican Sen. Paul Bettencourt that would require local governments to seek voter approval via special elections when raising property taxes by 5 percent or more
The current cap triggers elections on increases of 8 percent or more. Statewide, more than half of all property taxes collected go to funding public schools.
Local governments oppose the bill as legislative overreach, which may hurt it in the House.
Slumping oil prices have left Texas potentially $6 billion short of the funding needed to maintain current spending levels, making tax cuts especially contentious.
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SENATE SCHOOL VOUCHER BILL HITS COMMITTEE
Texas lawmakers have begun grappling with a hot-button school voucher plan that would offer families public money for sending their children to private and religious schools.
Friendswood Republican Sen. Larry Taylor’s bill would create state-subsidized education saving accounts for parents and offer tax credits to businesses that sponsor children’s private schooling via donations.
The issue has roiled the Legislature for years, with the Republican-led Senate backing “school choice” but such plans stalling in the GOP-controlled House. There, lawmakers worry about harming public schools that are the lifeblood of small communities they represent.
Taylor heads the Senate Education Committee, which is hearing from education and business groups applauding, and public school advocates decrying, his bill Tuesday.
It’ll quickly clear committee and the Senate, but likely won’t survive the House - like similar, past proposals.
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ON DECK
The House reconvenes at 10 a.m. Wednesday, and the Senate heads back an hour later. The House calendar features few items and while the list of bills eligible for floor votes is long in the Senate, the legislative workload there is expected to remain fairly light.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Did you have an afro back in 1979?” - Dallas Democratic Sen. Royce West to Sen. Paul Bettencourt after the Houston Republican said his tax bill would roll property tax rates back to levels unseen in Texas since the year before the 1980s began.
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