News Roundup: Parents Who Were Separated From Their Children At The Border Discuss Their Experiences

Our daily look at Texas headlines.

 

By Becky FogelJune 27, 2018 1:54 pm

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.

Some migrant parents who were separated from their children at the border have been released from custody. And they’re now talking about their experiences. Five Central American parents spoke at a shelter in El Paso on Monday. Marfa Public Radio’s Carlos Morales reports

Miriam – who would not give her last name – is from Guatemala. She says she just got in touch with her four-year-old son.  They were separated about a week ago.

Entonces le pregunte, a done le van a levantar. A un albergue. // Pero porque le digo. Porque es que ahora se  esta separando los niños de sus padres,” she says.

She says officials told her they were taking her son to a shelter. Miriam has just found out her son is in New York.

“Este, si, le dije que quieria hablar con el. Pero esta enojado con migo, no quise hablar con migo. El pensa que yo lo abandoné.”

Miriam has tried talking to him, but she says a social worker on the case told her he didn’t want to. Miriam says her son is mad. And she believes he thinks she abandoned him. Of the more than 2,000 migrant children that were separated from their parents, the government says 500 have been reunited so far.




Ten months after Hurricane Harvey, the federal government has approved a $5 billion housing recovery plan for Texans affected by the storm.

 

As Houston Public Media’s Travis Bubenik reports, almost half of the money will go to the Houston area.

The plan includes $2.3 billion for the Houston area and $2.7 billion for all the other places hit by the storm. There’s about a billion dollars for rebuilding Harvey-damaged homes outside Houston and Harris County. Statewide, the plan includes $275 million for government buyouts of homes and $250 million to build or re-build affordable rentals. Houston and Harris County still have to get approval on their individual plans for how to spend the money. The Texas General Land Office, which is overseeing the plan, says it’s been trying to speed up the process, but that it’s had to deal with “unnecessary hurdles” like environmental reviews and what it calls “expansive procurement procedures.




An elderly Texan is making amends – for stealing a stop sign from a small city in Utah decades ago.

And Midvale Mayor Robert Hale wants to know who sent the letter.

Hale read a portion of the anonymously penned note during a recent interview with the local Fox affiliate in Salt Lake City.

“I’m enclosing this 50 dollar bill to pay for a stop sign I took many years ago when I was a thoughtless teenager,” the letter said.

The mysterious and apologetic Texan, who writes that they are almost 90 years old, asked that the money be used to help replace future stop signs. Mayor Hale plans to honor that request. Hale also hopes to find and thank the sender, who he estimates may have swiped the sign in the 1940s.

“He paid more than 50 dollars in 75 years if he’s been carrying that burden on his shoulders.”

While the letter was postmarked from North Houston, the return address was merely marked as a “A citizen of Texas, U.S.A.”