“I’m here in Brownsville today to thank the hardworking men & women who are defending our border for their bravery and courage,” said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott earlier today, as he visited Texas National Guard Soldiers & Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Troopers at the Southern Border while providing an update on Texas' response to the ongoing Border Crisis during a Press Conference there.

Extreme budget cuts, rogue legal reforms, and media bias against law enforcement have resulted in significant recruitment and retention challenges for state and local law enforcement agencies nationwide. These factors are not only preventing law enforcement from carrying out their duties to protect Americans, but they are also impeding police agencies across the homeland from having the resources to train their officers properly.

Attorney General Paxton joined a multistate amicus brief that is in support of a U.S. Army veteran seeking full access to the educational benefits earned from his patriotic service to the country and multiple tours of duty. The petitioner in the case is a veteran who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, was injured in the line of duty, and received a number of commendations for his service, including a Bronze Star.  

"Whoever out there's been benefiting from abusing this, you are on notice — stop these abuses NOW!” exclaimed State Sen. Paul Bettencourt as he passed House Bill 2071 by Rep. Jacey Jetton out of the Texas Senate with bipartisan support. “The testimony I heard in the Senate Local Government Committee on PFCs was downright disturbing," said Bettencourt of the current abuses.

The seasonally adjusted civilian labor force increased by 62,184 to reach a series-high 14,960,308 people, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.0 percent. Texas added 33,300 positions to reach another series-high job count at 13,871,100 total nonfarm jobs. Texas job count increased more than any other state, with 534,600 positions added since April 2022.

In April 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to begin chartering buses and transporting just a small portion of the overall number of migrants flooding across the Southern Border to the self-declared "Sanctuary City" of Washington, DC. Soon after, Abbott added New York City, Chicago & Philadelphia as Sanctuary City drop-off locations. Add Denver to the list.

"Doctors and Hospitals should not be pushing mutilative, irreversible ‘gender transitioning’ procedures that will negatively impact innocent children for the rest of their lives," said Texas Att. Gen. Ken Paxton, announcing the launch of an investigation into Texas Children’s Hospital. This investigation comes on the heels of Paxton's investigation into Dell Children’s Medical Center over unlawful behavior related to “gender transitioning.”

“I’m proud to secure common sense regulations that're good for producers – while protecting our nation's natural resources," said Sen. Ted Cruz, after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) approval of new regulations under the Clean Water Act for offshore oil & gas operations. "These discharge regulations are key to the Lone Star State, and finalizing these responsible rules is a big victory for Texans & American jobs."

"Without customer protections and spending oversight that go hand-in-hand with regulation, this unproven model has the potential to add billions to the market – and without a firm cost cap, it threatens to significantly increase prices on consumers without meaningfully improving reliability,” said Texas Association of Manufacturers president & CEO Tony Bennett, while releasing the "ERCOT Market Reform Alternatives" study.

In letters sent to each of his fellow Governors, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requested support in responding to the rapidly escalating border crisis through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which enables states to provide assistance and share resources with another state in response to a disaster or emergency situations.

“The Constitution is clear. If the Federal Government fails to repel an invasion – of deadly drugs in this case, in my opinion enabled by the drug cartels – they have the right to enforce the laws, to detain, and to secure the border. President Biden's going to pander to the Left, and millions more are going to come in if we Texans don’t exercise, and all sovereign states, our right of self-defense," said Cong. Jodey Arrington.

The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) has announced the kickoff of this year’s Summer Earn & Learn (SEAL) Program to assist students with disabilities aged 14-22 earn a paycheck while acquiring skills and professional experience through work-based learning. In the summer of 2022, the SEAL Program hosted 2,516 students across the state, at 1,263 employer sites. Here are three unique success stories.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz praised the Committee’s passage of his bipartisan legislation to help combat the rise in illicit use of the dangerous animal tranquilizer xylazine, or tranq. The Testing, Rapid Analysis, and Narcotic Quality (TRANQ) Research Act, which Sen. Cruz introduced with Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to take steps to enhance understanding of tranq and other novel synthetic drugs. . . .

"It is beneath contempt for a President to threaten a worker’s ability to feed their family in order to achieve compliance with his mandates,” said Attorney General Paxton. Despite knowing the federal government lacked the authority to take such drastic measures, Joe Biden ignored the constitutional limits of his power, and worked to coerce over 80 million American workers into taking COVID-19 vaccines with unlawful mandates.

Each year, the nation sets aside time for of "National Police Week" to show special appreciation for Law Enforcement Personnel at all levels of government. We pay tribute to the brave men and women devoted to keeping our communities and families safe, and we remember the sacrifice of the heroes who have given all in the line of duty. We stand with Law Enforcement Officers and oppose efforts to "defund the police."

Street takeovers have recently become common occurrences in Texas. Houston arrests have been made almost weekly in 2023 for street and parking lot takeovers. In 2022, the Harris County D.A. handled 1,000 street racing cases. More recently, on February 18th Austin suffered seven street takeover events in one night. "Our message is clear: If you participate in these criminal acts, we’re going to throw the full weight of the law at you."

"In the two years that President Biden has been in office, there've been over 5 million encounters at the Southern Border, and at least 1.4 million gotaways. That totals nearly 6.5 million people. To put it in perspective… that’s bigger than the population sizes of thirty-three U.S. states. Republicans will not ignore this crisis. We will restore the security of our border," says West Texas Cong. August Pfluger.

“There is a full-on invasion unfolding... the worst illegal immigration in history – 6.5 million people crossing illegally," said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, as he and Senators Roger Marshall (R-KS), Ted Budd (R-NC) and John Hoeven (R-ND) toured the U.S.-Mexico Border in Brownsville, Texas as Title 42 ended. They toured Camp Monument, where they met with members of both the U.S. Customs & Border Patrol, and Texas National Guard.

It’s past time to stand up for America. ​​​​​​​The alarms are going off, Mr. Biden's asleep, and 5+ million Southern Border illegal crossings are devastating local communities and state resources. House Republicans passed legislation to fix Biden’s broken border policies, restart construction of the border wall, increase hiring of Border Patrol Agents, and end "Catch & Release." America and Texans are tired of shouldering the burden.

This latest version does little to provide meaningful school choice, and legislators deserve to know that it would be vetoed if it reached my desk. Instead, the original House version of the Senate bill provides a more meaningful starting point to begin House-Senate negotiations.