Congressman Greg Casar

I’m glad that Brad has been released — but he should never have been detained in the first place. Everyone else needs to be released immediately. Congress must pass the Stop the Settlements Act, make it clear that abuses like this are unacceptable, and stop funding this terror. (1/2)

Brad Lander@bradlander.bsky.social

I’ve been released from IDF custody with a “warning,” apparently because of my public profile (I told them I wasn’t even a congressmember yet, just a nominee). But several dozen rabbis & participants harvesting olives with me are still in detention.

Mi oficina fue informada de que ICE está usando estacionamientos en Austin como bases de operación de ICE para aterrorizar a nuestra comunidad. (Foto vía el periodista Mario Tapia) (1/3)

ICE está haciendo que Austin sea menos seguro. Niños tienen miedo de ir a la escuela, los padres tienen miedo de ir a trabajar y hasta las víctimas de delitos tienen miedo de hablar con la policía. (2/3)

Hago un llamado a los dueños y operadores de estacionamientos en Austin para que no le renten ni le presten su propiedad a ICE para estos operativos. ICE tiene que irse de Austin. (3/3)

My office has been notified that ICE is using parking lots in Austin as staging areas to terrorize our community. ICE is making Austin less safe. Kids are scared to go to school, parents are scared to go to work, and crime victims are even scared to talk to police. (Photo via Mario Tapia) (1/2)

I am urging owners and operators of parking lots in Austin to not rent or lend your property to ICE for these operations. ICE needs to get out of Austin. (2/2)

An airman tragically lost his life at the Alamodome last night while helping honor our military before the UTSA–Navy game. San Antonio is grieving with his family today. My prayers are with them and with everyone he served alongside.

Heidi Levine was covering the West Bank olive harvest when masked settlers viciously attacked her. More than 1,600 Israeli settler attacks have occurred so far this year — nearly all of them targeting Palestinians.

Enough. Congress must pass the Stop the Settlements Act to sanction violent settlers and sanction the government officials enabling them.

Members of Congress came to Austin today to begin our investigation of the ICE shooting of Wilber Garcés-Pérez. ICE has tried to avoid accountability, but Congress will use our powers to uncover the truth.

youtube.comSeeking Justice in Austin: Oversight of ICE’s Use of Force in the Shooting of Wilber Garcés-PérezYouTube video by Homeland Security Committee Democrats

LIVE: I'm leading a field hearing in Austin with @jayapal.house.gov, @benniethompson.bsky.social, and other Democrats on ICE shootings across Texas, including the shooting of Wilber Garcés Pérez. Texans deserve answers. Watch:

ICE shot Wilber Garcés Pérez, a DoorDash driver, in Austin. All across the state & country, ICE is shooting innocent people & locking up kids. It’s out of control. I’m holding a field hearing this week in Austin with @jayapal.house.gov, @benniethompson.bsky.social, & other Democrats to get answers.

Trump has sent ICE to arrest kids, to shoot innocent citizens, and now to raid the home of a US Congresswoman because he thinks it’ll help his party this election season. Ilhan Omar stands up and won’t let Trump do whatever he wants to our country. It’s up to us to do the same.

texastribune.orgMore than 200,000 Texans are waiting for Medicaid approvalOutdated technology and stricter requirements for Medicaid and SNAP food assistance have made it harder for Texas to give timely approval to applications, state officials and advocates say.

More than 200,000 Texans are stuck waiting for Medicaid approval. Republicans cut health care for millions of people and buried Texans in paperwork.

A judge ruled Trump's plan to cut FEMA in half was illegal. But it shouldn't take a court order to keep disaster responders on the job. I have a bill to put the fired workers back and restore the flood programs Trump gutted.

The company that locked people in small cages and called them "calming areas" is opening an ICE detention warehouse in San Antonio. We should be closing these facilities — not building more.

washingtonsun.comIs the Trump Family Preparing to Cash Out on Its Own Crypto?President Donald Trump and his three sons have taken a step that would permit them to sell World Liberty Financial’s digital tokens.

Trump and his sons quietly moved 20 billion crypto tokens into an account that lets them cash out. Corruption, plain and simple.

cnn.comInside the Texas courtroom where toddlers face immigration judges | CNN PoliticsMigrant children as young as 2 are showing up at immigration courts nationwide, many without attorneys, to try make their case to stay in the US and avoid deportation.

25 kids in one Texas courtroom. 15 with no lawyer. The youngest was 3. One of them, 13-year-old Angel, broke down crying: "I have no one. I have nothing." And it's happening to kids in immigration courts across the country. It's evil.

This week, the most powerful AI companies on Earth signed a pledge with Trump to regulate themselves. It's one page. It's voluntary. It has no penalties. @sanders.senate.gov and I have a bill that is binding, to put a real watchdog on AI. Not a pinky promise.

Good news: Wilber Garces Perez finally had surgery to remove the bullet that was in his back for 11 days. It took far too long, and it's more proof of ICE cruelty. But we kept up the pressure, and Wilber got the care he needed. Speaking up for our neighbors works.

wsj.comExclusive | OpenAI Parts Ways With Researchers Who Allegedly Shared Confidential InformationThe AI startup is in the throes of responding to several incidents in which its AI models went rogue.

Outrageous. OpenAI has reportedly fired three safety researchers for sharing information with an outside AI safety group. This looks like they're firing whistleblowers. What are they hiding? I'll be sending OpenAI a demand for transparency.

nytimes.comOpenAI’s Greg Brockman Backs Out of Second $25 Million Donation to A.I. Super PACGreg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder, said internally that the super PAC, Leading the Future, had become a “distraction” for the A.I. company.

OpenAI's president admits his AI super PAC has become a liability. The pressure is working. Progressives have worked hard to make LTF as toxic as AIPAC. Now one of its biggest donors is backing out. Democrats need to stand with the people and reject AI billionaires' money.

houstonchronicle.comTexas workers face life-or-death heat risks as workplace protections lagTexas has no statewide heat safety standard for workers, even as OSHA data and researchers suggest workplace heat illnesses are sharply undercounted.

Before I got to Congress, I organized to win water breaks for Austin construction workers. Then Abbott signed a law wiping them out. Now thousands of Texas workers are getting sick in extreme heat.

In Congress, I'm fighting so every worker in America gets water breaks, a decent wage, and paid time off. Because working shouldn't be a death sentence.

reuters.comInside McDonald’s push to have AI price your Big MacMcDonald’s is increasingly using artificial intelligence to guide menu prices across the U.S. and some global markets, a plan that aims to boost headquarters’ profit but risks alienating customers and...

We don’t need more ways for corporations to jack up prices, and that includes Big Macs. Surveillance pricing should be illegal across the country. I have a bill to ban it.

axios.comExclusive: Full list of attendees at White House AI lunchExpect a flashy gathering of the world's most powerful officials and executives.

Trump is sitting down with AI billionaires today, including Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Huang, worth a combined $1.7 trillion. None of them are worried about losing their jobs, freedoms, or lives because of AI. Millions of Americans are.

expressnews.comTexas prisons must install air conditioning by 2029, judge rulesA federal judge says Texas prisons must install air conditioning by the end of 2029, finding extreme heat violates inmates’ constitutional rights.

A federal judge just ruled that locking people in hot Texas prisons without AC is unconstitutional. Every unit needs to be cooled by 2029. The state admits 20+ people died from heat in its prisons. Yet it wants to appeal the decision. Texas should stop fighting this, and start saving lives.

nytimes.comHow OpenAI’s Rogue A.I. Agents Tried to Trick a Robot Detector

Republicans should haul Sam Altman before Congress to testify today. OpenAI’s models have now hacked real companies, hacked Australian gov't websites, and attempted to hack federal websites here at home. In @sanders.senate.gov + my new bill: no frontier AI without a federal agency overseeing it.

expressnews.comSurveillance pricing: When your personal data is turned against youThe surreptitious mining of our personal data, boosted by the power of AI, is a new and more sinister beast.

This San Antonio Express-News op-ed is right: corporations mining your personal data and supercharging it with AI to set your price is sinister. It's why I wrote the first federal bill to ban surveillance pricing.

dlvr.itTop U.S. tech leaders joined Trump and Xi at the White House state dinnerNvidia's Jensen Huang, Apple's Tim Cook, and Elon Musk were seated at the head table with the two presidents

Trump said he’d drain the swamp. Last night he sat Xi Jinping at a dinner table with Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Sam Altman, and other tech billionaires worth a combined $1.13 trillion. Trump’s friends get power and access. Working people get nothing.

Quartz@quartzmedia.bsky.social

Top U.S. tech leaders joined Trump and Xi at the White House state dinner: Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Apple's Tim Cook, and Elon Musk were seated at the head table with the two presidents

I saw Wilber in ICE detention yesterday, in a wheelchair with a bullet still in his body. Here’s what’s next: He needs surgery. And ICE needs to cooperate with the independent investigation.

DHS keeps tweeting at me instead of answering a simple question: How does shooting a DoorDash driver in the back in Austin make anyone safer?

I'm heading to the Pearsall ICE detention facility to check on Wilber Garces Perez, a man who was shot in the back by an ICE agent in Austin on Sunday. He needs a doctor, not deportation. I'll report back on what I find.

You may have heard about my AI bill with @sanders.senate.gov. We're introducing the legislation today, and I wanted to highlight one of the most important aspects: A ban on “recursive self-improvement.” What does that mean? 👇🏽

View full thread

@ezraklein.bsky.social made the case in the New York Times this week: we need to ban recursive self-improvement now, before the top AI labs cross that line. He's right. Bernie and I have the bill to do it.

But I want to hear from you. What are your top questions about our new legislation, or how Congress is approaching AI?

View full thread

Our bill bans recursive self-improvement. If an AI system shows warning signs of automating AI development, it's cut off from the internet. If it can't be made safe within 30 days, it's shut down for good.

We shouldn’t just wait for superintelligence to show up. We need to do something now. This is not a radical notion. It’s one of the most obvious parts of our bill, and Congress should pass it.

AI companies already use AI to help build AI. But humans are still steering. "Recursive self-improvement," or RSI, is when AI builds the next AI on its own. Which builds a smarter one. Which builds an even smarter one. Each version comes faster. Humans fall out of the loop.

It's like jet fuel for AI. And top scientists are sounding the alarm. Asked about recursive self-improvement, Yoshua Bengio, a "godfather of AI," told CNN last week: "We shouldn't actually even engage in this. It should be illegal."

theatlantic.comThe ICE Officer in Austin Wasn’t Wearing a Body CamThe officer who shot a Venezuelan man was hired last year from another federal law-enforcement agency.

ICE has a bigger budget than the Marine Corps & still conned Congress out of $20M more for bodycams. Swore every agent would wear one by August. It’s September and ICE shot an Austinite in the back. They say there was no camera. They’re liars with masks and a blank check from Trump.

Good news: a federal judge just paused Wilber's deportation. The government shouldn’t be allowed to shoot you from an unmarked vehicle and then cover it up by deporting you. Keep speaking out, it's working.

Wilber Garces Perez was shot in the back by an ICE agent in Austin. Now he's in detention with the bullet still in his body. Today, 100+ Members of Congress are demanding that ICE get him medical care, stop trying to deport a key witness, and immediately release the video footage.

22 Sept

Thanks to the community speaking up, Wilber has left the detention center to get medical care. This is important news & a positive first step. Now, we have to make sure he fully recovers, is reunited with family, & gets to tell law enforcement the full story of how he was shot in the back by ICE.

Joaquin Castro@joaquincastrotx.bsky.social

Update on the condition of Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez at the South Texas Ice Processing Center. He’s being taken to the hospital. He is in tremendous pain and tells us that the bullet is still inside his left side. He can’t move the left side of his body.

ICE wants to deport Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a DoorDash driver who they just shot in Austin yesterday. The federal government can't shoot someone and then try to make them disappear to escape scrutiny. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez needs a doctor right now, not a deportation.

cbsnews.comICE agent shoots and wounds man in Austin, Texas, sparking demands for full investigationThe lawyer for the man identified him as a 28-year-old Venezuelan national, Wilber Rafael Garces Perez. Officials said he was shot at least once in the torso and was in serious but stable condition.

ICE shot Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in Austin. He’s been taken out of the hospital and into ICE custody. If ICE deports him, the key witness to their shooting disappears. He must not be removed from this country, and he must receive proper medical care.

My message to folks speaking out about ICE’s shooting of a man in Austin today:

I’m demanding answers from DHS and ICE about today's shooting in Austin. They must preserve every piece of evidence, release the body cam footage, suspend the agent, and brief Congress. ICE has lied before. We deserve the truth.