Courts

For the second time, it looks like the government's efforts to reunify separated migrant families will be stymied by its own bureaucratic failings.

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A federal judge has ordered immigration officials to reunite all migrant children 5 and older with their parents by Thursday — but officials' own data shows that will be near impossible.

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In court filings, more than 200 migrants describe long waits for medical care, minimal access to legal services, verbal abuse from guards and untreated diaper rashes.

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The government has a court-ordered deadline of July 26 to reunify the rest of the children. But last time it came up against a deadline, the government declared almost half the children "ineligible."

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Oldham is the third Texas nominee to be confirmed to the powerful, conservative-leaning appeals court since President Donald Trump took office.

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Parents should have time to make an "informed, non-coerced decision" about whether they want to leave the country with their children, the ACLU had argued.

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Maria Vandelice de Bastos, who was detained and separated from her disabled grandson after they sought asylum at a port of entry last year, has been released from federal custody. But her ordeal is far from over after an immigration judge dismissed her asylum case. 

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Emilio Gutiérrez Soto faced death threats for reporting on cartel crime and government corruption and fled to the U.S. with his son. A judge has set a hearing to determine whether the government has detained them in violation of the First Amendment.

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U.S. Department of Justice lawyers are seeking permission from a federal judge to offer separated immigrant families two options: remain together in family detention centers, or release kids while parents stay detained.

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Claudia says she was one of several migrant women moved from an Austin-area detention facility to be closer to their children in South Texas. But Claudia wants to return to Central Texas, hundreds of miles from her 7-year-old son, where her lawyer thinks she has a better shot at being granted asylum.

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Three UT-Austin professors sued to end a state law mandating campus carry in Texas. Though a federal judge dismissed the suit, the fight isn't over as the case goes to a federal appeals court.

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The nation's highest court says the political maps in Texas are legal, except for racial gerrymandering in one Fort Worth district. But the courts aren't going to fix that in time for this year's elections.

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Since they crossed the Rio Grande and requested asylum, a father has been held in a detention center near Houston while his 6-year-old daughter was shipped to an Arizona shelter. Back in Honduras, the girl's mother says she fears her daughter will be traumatized by the ordeal.

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It will be especially difficult to reunite toddlers with parents who may have been released into the interior United States or even deported back to their home countries, government attorneys argued.

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The total number of apprehensions on the southwest border fell to 34,114 in June compared to 40,338 the month before. But border crossings often dip in the summer. 

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Government officials say they'll meet a pair of court-ordered deadlines to reunite children with their parents. But doing so, HHS Secretary Alex Azar warned, could mean relaxed standards for vetting those parents.

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Detainees trying to contact their family members are stymied by long wait times, confusing instructions, dropped calls and sometimes per-minute phone charges that critics say are exorbitant.

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President Donald Trump’s administration’s practice of indefinitely detaining some asylum seekers can’t proceed, a federal district judge has ruled.

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For Republicans, the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy represents an opportunity. For Democrats, it has inspired fear. And for the U.S. Senate race in Texas, it has already become a rallying cry.

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In deep-red Texas, abortion opponents are already eyeing the new U.S. Supreme Court vacancy as a chance to push more aggressive legislation without fear of judicial override.

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