Bob Moore, El Paso Matters President and CEO, covers top stories each week.
Scott Brocato:
Bob, let's start with the first story about an ex-girlfriend alleging domestic violence by District 6 runoff candidate Jesse Moreno.
Bob Moore:
Now, this is a story that kind of emerged in the middle of the week. And a young woman named Angelica Rodriguez, who's a master of social work student at UTEP and a longtime political activist, been involved in a lot of progressive causes, posted on her Instagram account some accusations that her former boyfriend Jesse Moreno had physically abused her sometime in the past. And it was lacking in detail a little bit, but she wound up talking fairly extensively to our reporter, Priscilla Totiyapungprasert, and kind of laid out some really disturbing allegations.
The most disturbing is that last December, while they were in a car together, Jesse Moreno got very angry at her, hit the dashboard, broke his stereo, and then punched her in the face. And she did not file a police report, so there had been no criminal charges, and talks a little bit about why she didn't file the police report.
Another one of our reporters, Diego Mendoza-Moyers, talked to Mr. Moreno on Wednesday night, and he mentioned just some expression of a concern for anybody facing domestic violence. He did not deny or acknowledge the accusations at all. So he kind of sidestepped the main issue here.
So Jesse Moreno is running for the District 6 seat on City Council, which covers much of the fast-growing east side. He's challenging Art Moreno, who's the incumbent. They were the top two finishers in the November 3 election, but because neither got 50%, they'll meet in December for a runoff. There's still some deadlines coming up to formally set the runoff. Candidates can withdraw from the election, and there's no indication that Moreno is doing that. But that's led to some accusations that Rodriguez has heard that she's doing this to support Art Fierro or doing it for political reasons. And she says that's not true. She just felt that she had to come out and speak on her behalf and let people know what happened. So this is a story that's still developing and will undoubtedly to be hearing more on this in the coming days.
Scott Brocato:
And moving on to the next story about an El Paso teen who should be celebrating Senior Night but is instead in Dilley ICE detention.
Bob Moore:
Yeah, this is a young woman named Michelle Germán, who is a student at El Paso High School. She's a member of the dance team, very popular young woman. She was a lady in waiting in the homecoming celebration, which is quite an honor. She came to El Paso in 2022 with her family who were from Venezuela. They were part of tens of thousands of people from Venezuela who were coming north at that time and came into the United States through El Paso. Unlike most of the other Venezuelans who arrived, this family stayed. And the father had a work permit, and they apparently have immigration cases that are pending in immigration court.
But a couple of weeks ago, ICE officers arrested Michelle and her father in what was described as a targeted operation aimed at the father. And ICE is not very specific about why there's no indication that he had a criminal record or anything like that.
And then shortly thereafter, ICE also picked up Michelle's mother and younger sister. And so they were taken to the Dilley detention facility, which is the primary family detention center that ICE has, very controversial facility, and they've been held there for a few weeks. Congressman Joaquin Castro, who represents that area, is trying to help the family at the request of Congresswoman Escobar from El Paso.
But last Friday was a big night at El Paso High. It's a Senior Night that's meant to honor people involved in athletics and other extracurricular activities. Michelle is a member of the dance team, and so several of her teammates held a poster of her as she was introduced and walked out onto the football field at Jones Stadium at El Paso High, and everybody was crying. So it's been very emotional and very upsetting for the students at El Paso High to have to see this kind of firsthand look at the current US immigration enforcement policies.
Scott Brocato:
And finally, after nearly three years, Attorney General Ken Paxton drops his fight to shut down El Paso's Annunciation House.
Bob Moore:
This is probably the first major fallout in Texas from the November 3rd election that swept Republicans from power. Ken Paxton had been the Attorney General for some time, and three years ago he launched this fight to basically shut down the Annunciation House shelters that have long provided care and hospitality to people who had entered the country without authorization, had immigration cases and things like that. The Annunciation House had fought this, saying that Paxton was engaged in a fishing expedition. The Texas Supreme Court had allowed this to go forward for Paxton to try to seek some records.
And the case had really started to accelerate just ahead of the midterms. They scheduled a deposition with Ruben Garcia, who is the founder and CEO of Annunciation House. But then on Monday, they suddenly entered a motion to dismiss with prejudice, which means they can't ever refile the case.
And clearly a result of the outcome of the election, the incoming Attorney General, who's a Democrat, almost certainly would not have pursued this case. There's a similar one in Houston with another organization that there was also a move to dismiss with prejudice. So the old saying is elections have consequences, and that's definitely proving out here with Annunciation House. So that case is now behind them.
Scott Brocato:
All right, and where can folks read about those stories and more?
Bob Moore:
Stay up to date with all the most important news at our region at ElPasoMatters.org.