Wisconsin Right Now

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers working through Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, continue to arrest “special interest aliens,” primarily men from countries of foreign concern. That includes Iran, a U.S. State Department designated State Sponsor of Terrorism. Texas DPS first sounded the alarm about increasing arrests of SIAs last month, The Center Square first reported . In the past week, DPS troopers have arrested dozens of SIAs, Texas DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez said in a series of social media posts . SIAs are noncitizens who, based “on an analysis of travel patterns,” are “known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism” who “potentially poses a national security risk to the United States,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security explains. Having an SIA designation does not necessarily mean the individual is a terrorist, but their travel pattern “indicates a possible nexus to nefarious activity (including terrorism) and, at ...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday declared the Venezuelan gang, Tren De Aragua (TDA) as a foreign terrorist organization. Texas Department of Public Safety is aggressively targeting gang members who were released into country by Biden administration, he said. “I will not allow them to use Texas as a base of operations to terrorize our citizens,” Abbott said at a news conference in Houston. “Texas is a law and order state and I will ensure that law enforcement has every tool they need to keep our community safe.” Tren De Aragua is characterized as “MS13 on steroids,” Abbott said, referring to a violent El Salvadoran gang. It’s “the largest criminal organization in Venezuela … that has now expanded to a transnational criminal organization … dominating the international flow of migrants from South America through Mexico into the United States.” They are known for brutal violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion, bribery and human and drug trafficking, Abbott said, linked to more than...

  Within one week of Texas suing the Biden administration over Border Patrol agents cutting concertina wire barriers on Texas soil, a federal judge granted Texas’ request and issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the federal government from cutting the fencing. In response to the ruling, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement on social media saying the judge ordering the Biden administration to stop cutting razor wire along the Texas-Mexico border was “another win for Texas and our historic border mission. [President Joe] Biden created this crisis and has tried to block us at every turn. Attorney General [Ken] Paxton and I are pushing back.” According to the 11-page ruling, “the temporary restraining order shall last until it expires on November 13, 2023, at 9:30 a.m., unless a further order of this Court extends the time.” Texas and the Texas Public Policy Foundation sued the Biden administration Oct. 24 in U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas Del Rio D...

  Texas has bused more than 50,000 people who’ve illegally entered the U.S. and were unlawfully released into the U.S., Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday. The majority have been bused to New York City, followed by Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles. Abbott began the busing strategy in April 2022. He first sent foreign nationals who illegally entered the U.S. in Texas to Washington, D.C. Since then, over 12,500 people chose to be transported to the nation’s capital. Last year, he expanded the strategy to send people to New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Since last August, Texas bused more than 18,500 people to New York City and over 13,500 people to Chicago. Since last November, Texas bused over 3,200 people to Philadelphia. This year, he began busing people to Denver and Los Angeles. So far, more than 3,200 people have arrived in Denver since May 18, and over 940 to Los Angeles since June 14. The governor recently directed additional bu...

A law took effect in Texas this month that bans transgender women from playing a woman's sport at the college level. It was similar to a 2021 law that banned athletes in public schools in that state from playing on any team that differed from the sex they were assigned to at birth. This year has been the battleground for the debate on whether biological males who identify as females should be allowed to play female sports as politicians and the courts have grappled with the issue. Many government agencies and transgender advocacy groups are pushing to allow boys who say they are girls to participate in sports previously reserved for females while polling shows that a majority of Americans are against it. According to The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll of 2,500 registered voters across the U.S., a 2-to-1 majority oppose transgender women student-athletes competing in women's sports. The poll was released in August and conducted by Noble Predictive Insights. A G...

A Texas National Guardsman has died after attempting to save people from drowning in the Rio Grande River who were illegally entering Texas from Mexico. They were later identified as drug smugglers, investigators with the Texas Rangers said. The guardsman, Specialist Bishop Evans, 22, from Arlington, Texas, went missing Friday morning. His body was found Monday. [caption id="attachment_80593" align="alignleft" width="300"] Specialist Bishop Evans[/caption] “The missing Texas Army National Guard Soldier, Specialist Bishop Evans, assigned to Operation Lone Star, has been found deceased following an exhaustive interagency search,” the Texas Military Department said in a statement issued Monday. “SPC Evans went missing while trying to selflessly help migrants who appeared to be drowning as they tried to cross the river from Mexico into the U.S, on Friday April 22, 2022.” “We are devastated by the loss of a member of our Guard family,” Maj. Gen. Tom Su...