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.
The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit uncovers big stories that matter to Texans and the nation, taking aim at corruption, injustice and malfeasance across the state. Read on for the latest stories, and be sure to sign up to get the latest on the people and policies shaping the future of Texas with the Tribune’s weekday newsletter.
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The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
Trump administration knew most Venezuelans deported from Texas to a Salvadoran prison had no U.S. convictions
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.
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Investigations
Texas lawmakers push to enforce election transparency law after newsrooms found school districts failed to comply
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.
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Investigations
An agency tasked with protecting immigrant children is becoming an enforcement arm, current and former staffers say
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.
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Investigations
Texas lawmakers want to spend millions on Child ID kits. Experts say there’s no evidence they work.
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.
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Investigations
Trump is spending billions on border security. Some residents living there lack basic resources.
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.
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Investigations
A Texas school leader says material about diversity in state-approved textbooks violated the law.
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.
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Investigations
Texas conservatives are using school board elections to exert influence over what students learn
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.
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The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
Texas lawmakers and charter leaders push back on the $870K paid to Valere schools’ superintendent
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.
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Investigations
This charter school superintendent makes $870,000. He leads a district with 1,000 students.
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.