Tag: texas

Migrant who ‘beheaded’ boss escaped deportation despite gruesome criminal record

The suspect in a horrific beheading of a motel manager in Texas had been detained by federal immigration officials — only to be released despite his rampant history of crimes across three states.

Cuban Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, 37, allegedly decapitated his boss and later kicking the head across the parking lot ‘like a soccer ball’ before tossing it into a dumpster. 

He had previously been detained and released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE, according to the Dallas Fox station. 

‘The migrant had been detained on January 13 and later released, despite a removal order to kick him out of the country because there was ‘no significant likelihood for removal in the foreseeable future,’ ICE told WFAA.

‘This barbaric criminal was released because Cuba would not accept him because of his criminal history.’

However, the local outlet found found footage of deportation flights to the island nation in 2023.

Additionally, Cobos-Martinez was wanted for a probation violation in California, with an active warrant. 

It’s unclear why Trump immigration officials did not arrest him on his active warrant, despite their immigration crackdown promise to arrest the ‘worst of the worst.’ 

In another violent episode, Cobos-Martinez allegedly carjacked a woman in south Lake Tahoe, California while he was naked. 

Two years ago, he was convicted in that case and sentence to a year and a half in prison. He also had a record in Florida, according to Fox 4 TV.

More information is surfacing about victim, Chandra Nagamallaiah, 50 as well.

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HORROR: Illegal Alien Released by Biden Admin Beheads Motel Manager In Dallas, Kicks Severed Head, Tosses it in Dumpster

An illegal alien who was released from ICE custody by the Biden Administration beheaded a motel manager in Old East Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday.

Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, an illegal alien from Cuba, was released into the interior of the US on January 13, 2025, just one week before Trump was sworn into office.

Cobos-Martinez used a machete to repeatedly hack the victim, Chandra Nagamallaiah, 50, and then beheaded him.

According to Fox News, Cobos-Martinez was caught on surveillance video kicking the victim’s severed head in the parking lot, then picking it up and tossing it into a dumpster.

Fox News reporter Bill Melugin said Cobos-Martinez has a prior criminal history of:

False imprisonment in CA (unknown disposition)
Indecency with a child in Texas (dismissed)
Grand theft of vehicle in Florida (dismissed)
Carjacking & false imprisonment in CA (acquitted on carjacking, convicted of false imprisonment).

Cobos-Martinez was charged with capital murder, Fox 4 reported.

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Property Taxes Are Theft

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has an absolutely thrilling idea, one I never imagined I would see unfold in my lifetime. He is putting on the ballot next year a referendum that would abolish or restrict local governments from taxing owner-occupied homes.

That’s right, he wants to get rid of the property tax, saving residents some $3,400 a year and fundamentally disrupting the way schools and local governments are financed.

Texas is considering the same path.

If this really happens, I can easily predict more of a demographic shift out of the Northeast and Northwest to the South and Texas. If this spreads to more states, it would amount to a revolution in public finance.

It’s long overdue. These tax schemes are brutal on home ownership. Indeed, it’s hard to say that you are ever really the owner of your home if you are having to pay rent to the government every year.

It’s especially a problem in an environment when the home valuation goes up every year and so does the tax you owe on the place. You have done nothing but lived there and enjoyed life. It is entirely paid off. Meanwhile, the government keeps coming after you with ever more pressing demands for money.

You cannot really say you are an owner of anything under these conditions. Of course when I hear about how this will save $3,400 on average in Florida, I nearly faint. In my area of the country, this would be pennies. Property taxes in New England can be $20K–40K and that is not unusual.

These taxes fund schools that people don’t use. That’s how public schooling in this country came to be financed. The system of school districts really is a system of tax districts. That’s why they are so heavily enforced. Live on this side of the street instead of that one and your taxes can be completely different. It’s all to fund the public schools, whether you use them or not.

Friends of mine are paying $30K in property taxes plus $70K per kid for private schools for three kids.

If that kind of expenditure shocks and amazes you, you are not alone. I find it all unfathomable but that’s how New England works.

It’s a different world in Texas and Florida. Here you have new experiments in school choice. The plans are different but they generally let the parent use the money that would otherwise go to the public school for private schools, charter schools, or homeschools, either in the form of direct payments or deductions from the tax bill overall.

We might ask how all of this is happening now. The answer traces to the school closures of 2020 and 2021 which dramatically reduced confidence in the public schooling system and hence the way they are financed. If millions of people are homeschooling and millions more are attending newly established private schools, the political pressure for ever-higher property taxes is thereby reduced.

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Texas attorney general wants students to pray in school – unless they’re Muslim

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general running for US Senate, has long believed in school prayer. Now, he’s prescribing precisely what type of prayer he wants the state’s 6 million public school students to recite.

“In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” Paxton said in a statement on Tuesday, encouraging students to say “the Lord’s Prayer, as taught by Jesus Christ”.

The press release included the full text of the Lord’s Prayer as it is written in the King James version of the Bible, the latest example of Paxton and other Texas officials seeming to endorse Christianity over other faiths.

“Twisted, radical liberals want to erase Truth, dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon, and erode the moral fabric of our society,” Paxton said. “Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far-left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.”

Paxton’s statement was released as Senate Bill 11 went into effect across Texas; it’s a piece of Republican legislation allowing schools to set aside time for “prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious texts” during the school day. Critics have condemned the bill as an attempt to imbue a secular public education in the state with the practice of Christianity, in violation of the US constitution’s separation of church and state.

“They’re blowing right through separation of church and state,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

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Rep. Jasmine Crockett: ‘No Good Point’ in Prosecuting Crimes Committed ‘to Survive’

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) suggested this week that poverty can drive people to commit certain crimes, arguing during a podcast interview that prosecutions are not always justified when offenses involve basic survival needs.

Speaking Wednesday on the Grounded podcast, Crockett, a former public defender, explained there is “a direct link between poverty and susceptibility to having to engage in certain things.” She insisted that not all people in poverty turn to crime, but maintained that circumstances often push individuals toward unlawful acts.

“There are crimes that are committed, not because people are criminals, but because they literally are trying to survive,” Crockett stated. She went on to cite Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot, who in past remarks suggested that his office would not prosecute low-level theft cases involving food, diapers, or other necessities. Crockett noted Creuzot “probably shouldn’t have said it out loud,” but nonetheless agreed with the approach, adding that “there is no good point in doing it because a decent defense attorney would have a defense.”

Crockett has become known for making radical statements on crime, politics, and the Trump administration. On the same day the podcast interview was released, she claimed during an MSNBC appearance that President Donald Trump was “unlawfully going into various minority controlled cities” with the National Guard.

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Ken Paxton Calls For Putting Prayer And Bible Back In Texas Schools

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged schools to prepare for classroom prayer and Bible reading following the passage of a new state law.

“In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” Paxton said in a statement.

He recommended that students start with the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13.

He warned that the far left is actively working to strip schools of America’s spiritual foundation.

“Twisted, radical liberals want to erase Truth, dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon, and erode the moral fabric of our society,” he said. “Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.”

The announcement follows Senate Bill 11, approved during the 89th Legislature. The law requires school boards to vote within six months of Sept. 1, 2025, on whether to adopt policies permitting voluntary prayer and Bible reading.

The measure also directs the Attorney General’s Office to defend districts or charter schools that adopt such policies.

Supporters quickly praised the move.

“God bless you, General Paxton, for having the courage to begin the legal process of putting prayer and reading of Scripture in Texas classrooms,” Melissa Katz wrote on X.

“Amen! Thank you, sir!” added Alexander Duncan, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Critics online pushed back.

“His actions are unconstitutional. I attend mass every week. Public school should be for all, not just Christians. Note, I am a Christian/Catholic and still feel this way,” wrote Vincomputerman.

“So now students have to take time out from academics so that there can be a prayer hour? Since when can’t people pray on their own time?” asked X user Johnson@F1979J.

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‘Teacher of the Year’ Brandyn Hargrove gets off with probation after admitting to abusing ex-student starting at age 15

A married former “Teacher of the Year” has pleaded guilty to having an “ongoing relationship” with one of her female students, starting when the girl was just 15.

Brandyn Martin Hargrove was convicted on Wednesday of 12 criminal counts connected to her sexual assault of the ex-student while she was a teacher at Brazoswood High School in Clute, Texas.

The formerly-decorated educator was sentenced to 10 years of probation and a 10-year probated sentence, meaning she won’t face any time in prison, despite grooming her student and having a sexual relationship with the minor, which continued until the girl turned 17, according to court records.

In September 2023, Hargrove’s victim, who is now in her 30s, walked into the police station to report she had been sexually assaulted by her teacher nearly two decades earlier, Clute Chief of Police James Fitch told ABC 13.

“From the get-go, we really felt there was a good chance this would go to trial, so we were a little surprised with the plea agreement. There was a lot of legwork by the detectives tracking down some of those people that went to school 17 years ago with our victim and people she made initial outcries to,” Fitch said.

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Texas Bills To Ban Consumable Hemp Products With THC Stall Out During Special Session

After several months of fiery debate and tearful testimonies over the prospect of banning THC statewide, proposed measures to do so have stalled in the Texas House.

Senate Bill 6, which would have created a blanket ban on products containing any “detectable amount of any cannabinoid” other than cannabidiol and cannabigerol, better known as CBD and CBG, non-intoxicating components of cannabis, hasn’t been heard in a House committee after the Senate passed it August 19. The House’s version of the bill hasn’t been heard in its chamber’s committee either.

Ten days might not be long for a bill to sit dormant during a regular legislative session, but with state leadership suggesting that the current special legislative session could wind down in the coming days, lawmakers would have to move fast on THC upon reconvening after Monday’s holiday.

Without further regulations or a ban being discussed by lawmakers in the House, the most likely scenario is that hemp-derived THC remains legal in Texas, but with more enforcement of current laws restricting the drug.

“It seems like a lot of people don’t want anything to do with it,” said Lukas Gilkey, chief executive of Hometown Hero, an Austin-based manufacturer of hemp-derived THC products. “It’s a hot potato.”

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Uvalde CISD calls missing Robb Elementary records a ‘mistake’; families say negligence

Attorneys for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District acknowledged this week that they failed to release all records requested in a lawsuit tied to the 2022 Robb Elementary School mass shooting, documents that could shed further light on the district’s response to the tragedy, calling the omission a mistake.

The admission came after a coalition of media companies, including Sinclair Broadcast Group, flagged missing materials in the district’s disclosures. The district’s legal representatives apologized publicly, insisting the error was not intentional.

“We are not in any way trying to hide anything,” one attorney told trustees during a tense meeting. “It was truly an error on our side.”

The revelation has reignited concerns among survivors and families of victims, many of whom have long accused school officials of withholding information about the shooting and its aftermath.

“I want accountability,” said Vincent Salazar, whose granddaughter, Layla, was killed in the attack. “The people who were there, who were responsible, did not do their job.”

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Signs Bill Banning Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Travel

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a bill into law Tuesday banning local governments from using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion travel out of state.

The law, Senate Bill 33, bars cities and counties from paying for hotels, airfare, meals, and other travel expenses for women seeking abortions outside of Texas. Abortion is outlawed in Texas with limited exceptions. 

Abbott also signed Senate Bill 31 at a signing ceremony on the same day. That bill, called the Life of the Mother Act, emphasizes that healthcare providers must treat a pregnant woman who has a life-threatening physical or medical emergency that places her at risk of death or serious injury. The law “clarifies and standardizes existing statutes related to medical emergency exceptions to abortion prohibitions, providing healthcare professionals with additional clarity around Texas’ pro-life laws,” according to the governor’s office.

“In Texas, we support mothers and their children,” Abbott said in a statement. “This session, the Texas Legislature worked together to pass the Life of the Mother Act to protect both mothers and babies while giving medical professionals the legal security and clinical clarity they desire. I am also proud to sign a law to ban taxpayer dollars from funding abortions. Texas is a pro-life and pro-family state. With these laws, we will stay that way.”

Abbott signed SB33 into law after the Austin City Council allocated $400,000 in the city’s budget in 2024 to help fund abortion travel. San Antonio considered a similar program this year, but was stymied by a lower court. 

Members of the pro-life organization Texas Values were present at the bill signing ceremony, along with state lawmakers, and other pro-life leaders. 

Policy Director for Texas Values Jonathan Covey celebrated the passage of the bills in a press release. 

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