Daily Dispatch 10/5/23: More Border Walls in Texas Get Biden Go-Ahead, and More

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Both sides of the political divide now recognize that the U.S. is experiencing an immigration crisis: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/influx-migrants-border-gains-renewed-attention-crisis-rhetoric-spreads-rcna118595#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16964949969634&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fpolitics-news%2Finflux-migrants-border-gains-renewed-attention-crisis-rhetoric-spreads-rcna118595 ...While the Biden Administration gives an emphatic green light to Trump-reminiscent border wall construction: https://apnews.com/article/border-wall-biden-immigration-texas-rio-grande-147d7ab497e6991e9ea929242f21ceb2 ...A Liberty County housing development comes under Republican fire for selling homes to undocumented citizens (which is legal): https://news.yahoo.com/texas-neighborhood-became-target-over-222036668.html ...And El Paso sees an uptick of high-speed chases related to illegal immigration, complete with gunfire: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/crime/2023/10/04/texas-dps-el-paso-border-smuggler-pursuit-chases-intensify/71045860007/ The Texas GOP delegation in the U.S. House is being courted by multiple candidates to replace Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/mccarthy-speaker-race-18406295.php ...While talk of Donald Trump taking the job is exciting his cult following, but remains a remote possibility: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/04/texas-republicans-scalise-jordan-hern-speaker/ ...And Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan faces a similar challenge to his position at the outset of the third special session: https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/after-mccarthy-texas-speaker-phelan-to-face-challenge-for-gavel/ Texas House Rep. James Talarico sounds the alarm on West Texas oil tycoons spending huge money to exert religious influence on Texas government: https://t.co/pUCZqtsXak U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a long and brainy talk at the University of Texas at Austin this week: https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-during-a-conversation-at-the-university-of-texas-at-austin-moderated-by-former-u-s-ambassador-to-nato-kay-bailey-hutchison/ And Texas may be home to the nation's biggest concentration of cheaters - but at least they're honest about it: https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/texas/texas-cheaters/285-000833ca-28cc-4298-8f3a-8d7cba19e653#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16964920665746&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.khou.com%2Farticle%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Ftexas%2Ftexas-cheaters%2F285-000833ca-28cc-4298-8f3a-8d7cba19e653 Thanks for listening! Please consider supporting Progress Texas in our ongoing and important work at https://progresstexas.org/.