The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday reveals the country is increasingly racially and ethnically diverse.
And in terms of raw numbers, Texas is home to the largest black population in the country at 3.8 million people as of 2017.
“So, this is the first year Texas has been the state with the largest black or African-American population since at least 2010,” says Molly Cromwell, a Census demographer. “Prior to this year, New York had the largest black or African-American population back to 2010. The population of black or African-Americans has been consistently large in Texas for quite some time however.”
Cromwell points out that since 2010, Texas has been in the top three states with the largest black or African American population.
“However if you look at the percentage of the population that is black or African American in Texas, it actually ranks 19th among states,” she says.
Texas also saw the largest numeric increase in its Hispanic population, though California still has the largest Hispanic population in the country.
U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas introduced a new immigration bill Wednesday – the same day President Donald Trump issued an executive order to stop the separation of families at the border, for now.
Cornyn says even though the order would keep migrant families together while parents are prosecuted, there’s still a need for legislation to address the larger issues surrounding immigration.
“This is something that I think Texans know more about than most other places around the country, and so I’ve tried to make this issue a priority, but I must say every time we get close to a solution, we never fail to fail, and that’s unacceptable so we’re just going to keep trying,” Cornyn said.
One of the key parts of the proposed “Keep Families Together and Enforce the Law Act” is increasing the number of immigration judges.
That’s in spite of comments Trump made this week criticizing calls for more judges saying “We have to have a real border, not judges.”
Cornyn told reporters Wednesday, he thinks they can still get Trump on board.
“We’d continue to make the case with the president that the backlog is such that we do need more immigration judges – are bill would authorize 200 more immigration judges, and we need to clearly get this backlog down,” Cornyn said.
Increasing the number of judges is aimed at expediting the review process for asylum cases. The goal is for families to find out in a matter of weeks whether they’ve been granted asylum or are being deported.
The competition to host the 2020 Democratic National Convention is down to three cities: Miami Beach, Milwaukee, and Houston.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says he’s optimistic about his city’s chances.
“There is no other city that can beat us logistically. I mean, we talk about we’ve handled the Super Bowl, and we did it very successfully,” he said. “We talked about the rodeo, which is the equivalent of a Super Bowl in our city for 3 weeks, and we’ve continuously done that.”
Turner says, regardless of the outcome, Houston will also bid to host the Republican National Convention in 2024.
