A U.S. appeals court on Monday upheld a ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from deporting individuals to countries not previously listed by the government, unless those individuals are allowed to demonstrate they face a risk of persecution or torture in those countries.
The three judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, denied a request from the Trump administration to suspend a nationwide temporary restraining order issued on March 28.
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, one of the candidates running for the late Rep. Sylvester Turner’s seat, criticized the delay in calling the special election. Menefee had advocated for a June election.
“It’s unacceptable to leave nearly 800,000 people in this district without representation for most of the year,” Menefee said in a statement. “We’ll go through hurricane season, budget disputes, and potential cuts to Social Security and Medicaid with no one fighting for us.”
Menefee, along with Democratic U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, had previously threatened to take legal action against Governor Abbott over the election delay.
Last week, Teneshia Hudspeth, Harris County’s chief elections officer, stated that the county was “fully prepared” to conduct the election. In 2023, Governor Abbott signed a law removing the county’s elections administrator and transferring the duties to other local officials, including Hudspeth. She noted that since the change, her office has successfully overseen eight elections.
Turner, a former mayor of Houston, passed away just weeks into his first term in Congress.
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