AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Texans are voicing growing concern about the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence data centers, putting new pressure on state leaders to balance economic development, national security and local worries over water and electricity.
A newly released poll from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas found 56% of Texans oppose the construction of data centers in their community. Opposition was higher in rural and suburban communities where current and planned data center construction is more prevalent.
Some of those concerns came up Tuesday during a Texas House Natural Resources Committee hearing, where lawmakers heard from local officials, industry representatives and residents worried about the strain data centers could place on Texas’ water supply and power grid.
Some lawmakers said they understand why voters are skeptical. State Rep. Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin, said the feedback he hears from constituents is “overwhelmingly” negative toward data centers, but he also questioned how to weigh that against broader national security concerns tied to the race to develop artificial intelligence.
Several county-level leaders asked the state to give local governments more authority to block or regulate data centers before they are built.
Gov. Greg Abbott has also been responding to voter concerns. In an interview with NewsNation’s Ali Bradley, Abbott said when it comes to data centers “Texans are going to be protected.”
“Here’s what I outlined so far, and that is, data centers must bring their own power,” Abbott said in the interview. “They must reuse their own water. And they must reduce electricity costs for residential customers as well as small business customers. Those are bottom line expectations.”
Supreme Court sides with Trump in immigration cases
Thursday marked a pivotal win for the Trump administration in a major immigration case, allowing the federal government to remove temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian refugees, including tens of thousands in Texas.
TPS was enacted in 1990 to allow individuals from foreign countries to temporarily live and work legally in the U.S. due to their countries experiencing extraordinary conditions.
Refugees from Haiti were first granted 18-month TPS in 2010 by the Obama administration following a devastating earthquake. Syria’s protected status began in 2012 following a political uprising in 2011.
As of 2025, there are 147,080 individuals in Texas with TPS, including those from Haiti and Syria.
Federal law requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to periodically review countries with TPS protections to determine whether or not protection needs to be extended.
After continuous renewals of both Haiti and Syria, former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem terminated protected status for both countries in September 2025.
Haitian and Syrian refugees within the U.S. quickly pursued legal action against the administration in attempts to receive relief from their termination of status.
Thursday, The Supreme Court combined the two cases in its ruling.
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled the Trump administration did not unlawfully terminate TPS for Syrian and Haitian nationals. This decision allows TPS protections to be terminated for the two countries– subjecting thousands to potential deportation.
In granting DHS’s TPS terminations, Justice Samuel Alito pointed to federal law explicitly restricting courts from reviewing those terminations.
The law states “there is no judicial review of any determination of the [Secretary of Homeland Security] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.”
In an amicus brief filed to the Supreme Court in April, Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asserted that DHS acted within the law.
“The Secretary must periodically review the designation, and ‘shall terminate the designation’ if the Secretary finds that the foreign country no longer satisfies the statutory criteria,” Cruz wrote. “That’s what the Secretary did here for both Haiti (originally designated in 2010) and Syria (originally designated in 2012).”
The majority agreed and also rejected the claim that the administration’s actions were discriminatory, citing comments from the President and Noem regarding the country of Haiti and its people.
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan accused the majority of misrepresenting the President’s comments towards Haitian immigrants.
“The references—of filth, disease, and primitiveness—are shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes. It is hard to imagine the statements being made today of any White community,” Kagan wrote.
After the ruling, DHS released a statement agreeing with the court’s conclusion in this and another immigration case, allowing the government to turn away asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border if they are physically on the Mexico side of the border.
“These three rulings are all victories for the rule of law and common sense,” said DHS General Counsel James Percival. “This includes barring aliens from applying for asylum if they haven’t set foot in the United States, making it easier to remove lawful permanent residents (LPRs) who commit a crime, and reaffirming that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was always supposed to be temporary and can be cancelled at the appropriate time. Thanks to these decisions, we now have several more important tools to continue securing our borders.”
Governor Greg Abbott in a social media post Thursday also praised the decision.
“Huge decision by the Supreme Court. SCOTUS got this right. Temporary means temporary,” Abbott wrote on X.
This win for the administration represents a larger shift away from TPS protections. According to the court, “the Secretary of Homeland Security has terminated every TPS designation that has come up for renewal, 13 in all.”
Andrea Flores, a former DHS and White House immigration official under the Obama and Biden administrations, highlights possible economic impacts from the ruling.
“The Supreme Court just paved the way for the biggest delegalization of immigrants in modern history. This decision will not only force hundreds of thousands of workers out of our economy, its ripple effects will make our cost-of-living crisis even worse. Today, the Supreme Court disrupted the design of a commonsense bipartisan policy that allows people to legally work and live here in the United States when conditions in their countries of origin make it too dangerous to return home,” Flores said in a written statement to Nexstar.
Senate push to change college sports rules faces powerful opposition
A bipartisan push to rewrite the rules for college sports is moving forward in Washington, but the plan is already facing opposition from two of the most powerful conferences in the country.
The Protect College Sports Act, co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, cleared the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this month in a 19-9 vote.
Supporters say the bill is needed to bring stability to a college athletics system that has changed dramatically since athletes gained the ability to make money from their name, image and likeness, commonly known as NIL.
The legislation would create one federal standard for how college athletes can be paid. It would also give athletes five years of eligibility, limit them to one transfer, guarantee protections for women’s sports and non-revenue sports, and require schools to make local college football and basketball games available on a local broadcaster for free.
Cruz said the bill is intended to prevent chaos in college athletics and protect opportunities for athletes at schools that may not have the same resources as the biggest programs.
But the bill has drawn pushback from the SEC and Big Ten, the two most powerful conferences in college sports. In Texas, that matters because the SEC includes the University of Texas and Texas A&M.
The SEC and Big Ten say the bill does not go far enough to preempt the patchwork of state laws governing college athletics. They also argue it could create more litigation and may result in fewer athletes receiving direct revenue-sharing payments.
That changing system has created a split among conferences. While the SEC and Big Ten oppose the current version of the bill, the ACC and Big 12 have supported efforts to create a national framework. The Big 12 has a significant Texas footprint, with Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU and Houston among its members.
The legislation still has a long road ahead. It would need to pass the full Senate, pass the House and be signed by President Trump before becoming law.
Senator Cruz acknowledged criticism of the legislation, but says he believes it’s the best option available. “If the alternative is do nothing and allow chaos to continue in college sports to be destroyed, I think that alternative is unacceptable,” Cruz said.
Bankruptcy declaration leaves lawsuits against Camp Mystic in limbo
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Camp Mystic, LLC, Natural Fountains Properties, Inc., Mystic Camps Family Partnership, Ltd., and Mystic Camps Management, LLC, all filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“Filing for bankruptcy means that all lawsuits against Camp Mystic … they are temporarily paused by something called the automatic stay,” Sarah Foss, Global Head of Legal at DebtWire, said. “It is possible for the bankruptcy court to lift the automatic stay to allow that litigation of the cases… that were commenced or filed before the bankruptcy to proceed in the court where they were filed while the case is still pending.”
Camp Mystic and the other listed entities have been in and out of the Travis County Courthouse since March. They’re facing five lawsuits from various family members of the 25 young campers and two young camp counselors who died at the Camp during last year’s Independence Day floods.
“Certainly the litigation in Travis County is stayed,” Attorney Randy Howry said. Howry represents the family of 8-year-old flood victim Eloise “Lulu” Peck. He noted that the case could still proceed, but without the entities that filed for bankruptcy. “The individual members of the Eastland family who’ve been named as individual defendants did not file for bankruptcy, they still remain.”
This early into the bankruptcy process, it’s difficult to tell what the ultimate effects on the lawsuits will be.
“They can certainly [go to court] after the case is over, or even as the bankruptcy case has been proceeding for a while,” Foss said. “They could choose to continue that litigation [and] get that judgement outside of bankruptcy court, they could try to move it to the bankruptcy court to be heard, or they could just settle it through the other claims resolution process that’s going to be established in the bankruptcy.”
Two weeks ago, attorneys for Camp Mystic attempted to move the case to arbitration — which would take it out of Travis County District Court. As of the bankruptcy filing, both parties were awaiting a ruling on the arguments from Judge Maya Guerra Gamble.
“In my heart, I believe that the reason this was done at this time, at one o’clock in the morning… is because they were trying to avoid Judge Gamble’s ultimate decision on the motion for sanctions and on the motion to compel removal of this case for arbitration,” Howry said.
His hope — that the plaintiff’s team can prove this theory to a judge.
“If in fact, we’re right about my hunch… then we’ll ask the court to consider a motion to dismiss based on the fact that the removal on bankruptcy is not appropriate and not well-regarded,” he said. This is a similar argument to the one the plaintiff’s attorneys made to Gamble two weeks ago.
Either way, Howry says he’ll represent the Peck family until the end.
“They’re giving themselves as many detours as they can. It’s OK,” he said. “Whatever they’re doing, we’re going to get them in the courtroom and have to face up to their responsibilities for the terrible things that happened to our client, and these 26 other little girls.”
Most of the oral argumentation for the victim’s families has been handled so far by Brad Beckworth, one of the attorneys representing the family of 8-year-old flooding victim Cile Steward. Steward is the only camp victim who’s body has yet to be recovered.
Beckworth, Christina Yarnell and Blair Townsend — all representing the Steward family — wrote a statement slamming Mystic’s bankruptcy decision.
“The timing, just before the one-year anniversary, is a despicable gut punch to families already bracing to grieve their daughters under a canopy of Fourth of July fireworks. The Eastlands are clearly trying to avoid a jury trial,” the statement said in part. “But that day is still coming. A bankruptcy may reorganize their debts. It cannot reorganize the truth.”
Their sentiment was shared by attorneys on one of the other cases.
“The bankruptcy filing is not accountability. It is simply a financial reorganization that could allow the same people and entities to remain in control of Camp Mystic while attempting to circumvent the justice of the Court. After 27 girls died, this filing is just another attempt to delay taking responsibility,” Kyle Findley said in a statement. He represents six families who lost their loved ones during the floods.
Nexstar reached out to Camp Mystic and their attorneys for comment. They did not respond in time for this story.
