DHS Secretary Says Court Challenge Could Kill DACA: Your Texas Roundup

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“One of the things with the wall is you need transparency. You have to be able to see through it. In other words, if you can’t see through that wall—so it could be a steel wall with openings, but you have to have openings because you have to see what’s on the other side of the wall. And I’ll give you an example. As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see—they hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It’s over. As crazy as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall. But we have some incredible designs.”

—President Donald Trump to reporters on Air Force One on Thursday, according to the New York Times.

BIG NEWS

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John KellyChip Somodevilla/Getty

DACA Doomed?—The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is in trouble. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in a private meeting on Wednesday that he believes the program shielding more than 800,000 undocumented immigrants would not survive if it were challenged in court, and he didn’t say whether the Department of Justice would back the Obama-era program if that happened, according to the Washington Post. (DACA gives undocumented immigrants who arrived as children temporary relief from deportation by lending them authorization to work for two years.) Two weeks earlier, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton penned a letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, threatening to take legal action, along with nine other states, against the feds unless Donald Trump’s administration started to phase out DACA by September 5. “This is what he’s being told by different attorneys, that if it goes to court it might not survive,” DHS spokesman David Lapan told the Post, adding that unless Congress takes action to protect the program by passing a bill, “they’re leaving it in the hands of the courts to make a decision.” Despite promising during his presidential campaign that he would rescind DACA, Trump was noncommittal when asked whether the DOJ would have any impact on the future of the program. “It’s a decision that I make and it’s a decision that’s very, very hard to make,” Trump told reporters in Paris on Thursday, according to the Dallas Morning News. “I really understand the situation now. I understand the situation very well. What I’d like to do is a comprehensive immigration plan. But our country and political forces are not ready yet. There are two sides of a story. It’s always tough.”

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS

Bey’s Beybies—They’re finally here, y’all. Beyonce’s beybies. Two of them. Twins. Here we are, in 2017, the Year of Sir Carter and Rumi, the birth of whom was officially announced by the Queen Bee in an Instagram post early Friday morning. The announcement was made in a truly royal fashion, with Beyonce cradling a babe in each arm like Madonna and Children, a floral display forming a halo behind her blue-veiled head. The Instagram post celebrated Sir Carter and Rumi’s one-month birthday, and Beyonce’s biggest fans have been eagerly awaiting some sort of twin content. This is the first time Beyonce has publicly shared any information on the newest additions to her family. Needless to say, her fans are stoked. As of Friday morning, the Instagram post already had 4,787,299 likes.

The Big Spill—A crude oil pipeline ruptured on Thursday morning in Bastrop County, spilling more than 50,000 gallons—1,200 barrels of crude oil—and prompting the area to be evacuated. According to KVUE, a contractor was conducting maintenance on the system when an excavator cut the pipeline about four miles outside of Bastrop, and about fifteen homes nearby had to be evacuated. The owners of the pipeline, Magellan Midstream Partners, said in a statement that no one was hurt and that the spill was contained before it reached any waterways. According to KXAN, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality records show about forty private water wells in the area near the spill. The ruptured pipeline shut down a section of FM 20, and on Friday morning crews were still working to clean it up. The U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Texas Railroad Commission are both investigating the spill and cleanup, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Meddling Kids—U.S. Rep. Bill Flores has some advice for President Donald Trump: keep your kids out of the White House. Flores, a Republican from Bryan, told KBTX on Thursday that he believes Trump’s children, who have so far held prominent roles throughout Trump’s campaign and presidency, should just be removed from the White House. “I’m going out on a limb here, but I would say that I think it would be in the president’s best interest if he removed all of his children from the White House,” Flores told KBTX. “Not only Donald Trump [Jr.], but Ivanka and Jared Kushner.” Flores’s comments came after Donald Trump Jr. admitted to knowingly meeting last summer with a Moscow-linked Russian lawyer who promised to provide information on Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s candidacy. “I do find issues with the meeting,” Flores told KBTX. “It’s a meeting that should not have taken place. I think he thought he was looking out for his father’s best interest.”