The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit

How the billionaire businessman’s lobbyists helped him get so many state Legislature wins is something of a mystery. Full Story 

While Elon Musk took Washington, D.C., by storm, his company representatives and lobbyists were also notching up big political wins in Texas. Full Story 

For the second time, lawmakers cut funding for kits meant to help find missing kids after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune documented the lack of evidence that the kits work. Full Story 

Texas’ conservative Legislature has again and again refused to mandate that most private businesses use E-Verify. Experts say that Republican resistance is rooted in how the system could impact the state’s labor supply and economy. Full Story 

Homeland Security records reveal that officials knew that more than half of the 238 deportees to El Salvador were labeled as having no criminal record in the U.S. and had only violated immigration laws. Full Story 

ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found nearly three dozen school districts were missing required campaign finance reports online. Now lawmakers are pushing to impose steep penalties on local governments that fail to abide by the law. Full Story 

The Office of Refugee Resettlement’s welfare mission appears to be undergoing a stark transformation as President Donald Trump seeks to ramp up deportation numbers, current and former officials told The Texas Tribune and ProPublica. Full Story 

Texas legislators slipped millions for child ID kits into a 1,000-page budget proposal. The move comes two years after they quietly cut funding for such kits following a ProPublica and Texas Tribune report that showed there’s no evidence they work. Full Story 

The president has reportedly urged Congress to pass $175 billion for border security. But residents of Del Rio, Texas, and Douglas, Arizona, say basic needs — like safe drinking water and hospital access — aren’t being met. Full Story 

The decision to strip chapters from books that had already won the approval of the state’s Republican-controlled board of education represents an escalation in how local school boards run by ideological conservatives influence what children learn. Full Story 

In six Texas districts that used at-large voting systems, ideologically driven groups successfully helped elect school board members who have moved aggressively to ban or remove educational materials that teach children about diversity. Full Story 

The rebuke from lawmakers and charter school leaders came after an investigation from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune revealed that Salvador Cavazos, who oversees fewer than 1,000 students, is among the most well-paid superintendents in the country. Full Story 

On paper, Salvador Cavazos earns less than $300,000 to run Valere Public Schools, a small Texas charter network. But taxpayers likely aren’t aware that his total pay makes him one of the country’s highest-earning superintendents. Full Story 

Yoiker Sequera’s mother reflects on her fears after finding out her son had been detained in the infamous prison in Cuba for two weeks before being deported to Venezuela. Full Story 

Trump’s executive orders have blocked entrance to the country for thousands of Afghans, including those who worked with the U.S. military and their relatives. Two brothers hope permission comes quickly for their sister and her husband, who they say are in danger. Full Story 

The Trump administration has flown about 100 immigrants from El Paso to Guantanamo Bay. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune identified nearly a dozen of them and spoke to relatives of three of them. Full Story 

Donald Trump and the Texas attorney general have forged a friendship over the years, one that has been cemented in their shared political and legal struggles and their willingness to come to each other’s aid at times of upheaval. Full Story 

State leaders have shown a decadeslong antipathy toward the health insurance program. If Trump makes severe reductions, it’s unlikely leaders would have the political will to make up any lost federal funds with state money, experts say. Full Story 

Del Rio Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez’s run for reelection provides a glimpse at how new patterns of immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border have coincided with, if not driven, changing attitudes among voters who live there. Full Story 

Immigration is not part of Joe Frank Martinez’s job. But in Del Rio, like in other majority Latino communities across the country, the issue is high on voters’ minds and is disrupting long-standing political allegiances. Full Story