Texas
Meteorologists forecast severe storms, chance of tornadoes in Central Texas on Thursday
The National Weather Service expects an “active day” in Central Texas on Thursday, forecasting scattered showers, isolated thunderstorms and possible tornadoes across portions of the Hill Country, I-35 corridor and Coastal Plains.
Meteorologists said there’s a chance of tornadoes near and east of the I-35 and I-37 corridors, with the greatest risk forecasted along and east of the U.S. 77 corridor.
Lee and Fayette counties could see the worst of the storms, with a level 3 out of 5 storm severity. Travis, Williamson and Hays counties were graded a level 2, or “slight risk” for severe storms.
Storms are likely to be at their worst between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Thursday. The weather service urges Texans to be weather aware until Friday.
Texas
Northbound East Loop 820 closed after possible road rage shooting, police say
FORT WORTH — Northbound lanes of East Loop 820 are closed after a person was found shot in their vehicle Monday night.
Fort Worth police said east units were called to East Loop 820 & Meadowbrook around 6:45 p.m. for a traffic hazard. Responding officers found an unconscious person in a vehicle bleeding and discovered the victim had been shot.
The victim was taken to the hospital, where they were later pronounced dead.
There is no one in custody at this time and Fort Worth PD said this is believed to be a road rage incident. An investigation is underway.
TxDOT officials said the roadway will be closed for several hours.
Texas
ICE begins immigration raids across Texas
TEXAS — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted raids around Texas on Sunday, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Sally Sparks, DEA Houston Division spokesperson, told Spectrum News, “The DEA Houston division along with our Department of Justice partners, is assisting DHS and other federal law enforcement partners with their targeted enforcement actions.”
Sparks added that the raids occurred in Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Brownsville and McAllen.
On Jan. 20 and 21, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency concerning immigration, enacting multiple executive orders.
The first group of active-duty military personnel arrived in El Paso and San Diego last week to bolster border security, according to defense officials.
The Associated Press reported on Jan. 23 that no requests had been made to use military bases for migrant housing or troops for law enforcement.
Texas
Multi-agency operation targeted immigrants in Austin and San Antonio
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Agents from multiple federal agencies carried out immigration enforcement operations in Austin and San Antonio on Sunday, federal officials said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives collaborated on “enhanced targeted operations” in both cities, an ICE spokesperson said. A similar operation took place Sunday morning in the Rio Grande Valley, a local station reported.
The spokesperson said the operations were to “enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.” The official did not say what kind of offenses the targeted individuals were suspected of committing or whether anyone was detained.
KXAN first reported ICE was conducting an operation in the Austin area on Sunday afternoon through a spokesperson for the DEA’s Houston division. DEA spokesperson Sally Sparks said the agency’s Houston office “mobilized every agent in our division,” whose jurisdiction spans from Brownsville to Corpus Christi, Del Rio and Waco.
“We got information that we had to mobilize, so we mobilized,” Sparks told The Texas Tribune. “The majority of our agents assisted.”
A Houston DEA post on X on Sunday showed photos of law enforcement officers in a residential area escorting a man in handcuffs.
Neither ICE nor the DEA answered questions about the scale of the operations. Spokespeople for the Travis and Bexar counties’ sheriff’s offices said they had not been notified of the operations. A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said Doggett did not receive advance notice that ICE would conduct an operation in Austin.
Sunday’s operations came less than one week after President Donald Trump began his second term as president and promised mass deportations across the country. Trump issued more than a dozen immigration-related executive orders last week, including halting the use of an app that lets migrants make appointments to request asylum and authorizing immigration officers to raid sensitive locations such as churches, schools and hospitals.
The Trump administration has also directed federal officials to investigate and potentially prosecute local officials who interfere with deportation efforts. Some local Texas officials said they are ready to assist Trump, though they have offered scant details on how they would cooperate. A group of Texas lawmakers asked state education officials last week for clear guidance on how school districts should prepare for federal immigration enforcement.
Federal officials also conducted raids in Chicago on Sunday, and ICE officials have been directed to increase the number of people they arrest from a few hundred per day to at least 1,200 to 1,500, The Washington Post reported Sunday. ICE made 956 arrests Sunday and sent 554 requests to take custody of individuals currently being held in jails, prisons or other confinement facilities, the agency said in a Sunday evening post on X.
Trump’s actions over the past week have left some migrants stranded on the U.S.-Mexico border, and the threat of deportation has left others in fear. Texas is home to approximately 1.6 million undocumented people, according to a Pew Research Center Report.
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