By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday granted the Justice Department’s request to dismiss the criminal case against the alleged MS-13 gang East Coast leader whom prosecutors say they now intend to deport just weeks after top government officials celebrated his arrest outside of Washington.

Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos ‘ lawyer in an usual request urged the judge not to immediately dismiss the case, saying he feared his client would be deported to an El Salvador prison without a chance to challenge his removal.

“This was clearly a political decision,” defense attorney Muhammad Elsayed told the judge of the choice to deport Villatoro Santos. The motion to dismiss was filed shortly after the Justice Department made a “ high profile spectacle out of him,” Elsayed added.

But Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick said during a hearing in Virginia that judge cannot second-guess prosecutors’ decision not to pursue a case, and that the criminal court isn’t the proper place to seek relief from deportation.

Villatoro Santos will not be handed over to immigration authorities until Friday morning, however, as the judge decided his ruling won’t go into effect until later this week to give the defense a chance to potentially explore other challenges.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin held a press conference last month to announce the arrest of Villatoro Santos, whom they described as one of the top three MS-13 leaders in the country. President Donald Trump also posted on social media touting his arrest, calling him a “major leader.”

But he was only charged in federal court with a gun offense stemming from several firearms during the search of his home, according to court papers. Investigators said they found “indicia of MS-13 association” in his bedroom but prosecutors have provided no other details in court documents about his alleged gang involvement.

Villatoro Santos’ lawyer declined to comment to reporters after Tuesday’s hearing.

Elsayed argued there’s a serious risk his client will be sent to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT prison, like hundreds of other alleged gang members deported last month without an opportunity to challenge their removals.

Elsayed said he has been unable to get assurances from the federal government that he will be placed into the ordinary removal process and not just “whisked off” on a plane to El Salvador.

The Supreme Court has since said that alleged Tren de Aragua gang members must have an opportunity to challenge their removal before being removed under the Alien Enemies Act.

Freshman linebacker David Amaliri said Tuesday he plans to leave the Gophers football program and enter the NCAA transfer portal. Listed at 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, he is the Gophers’ first scholarship player to enter the portal this spring.

Amaliri, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, was a member of the 2024 recruiting class; he did not play in a game last fall and redshirted. After finishing his high school career at Clearwater (Fla.) Academy International, he has four years of eligibility remaining.

“I am forever grateful for my time at Minnesota,” Amaliri wrote on social media, thanking head coach P.J. Fleck, assistant coaches and teammates.

The spring portal window officially opens Wednesday and closes April 25.

One of the biggest names to enter the portal so far is California running back Jaydn Ott, who rushed for 1,315 yards in 2023 (14th-most in the nation) and then 385 last season. The U travels to Berkeley, Calif., to play the Golden Bears on Sept. 13.

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Editor’s Note: The Observer published this feature in its March 27, 1998, edition. The prior year’s private school voucher proposal narrowly died at the Lege.

Bullock wouldn’t discuss his recent resignation from the voucher PAC Putting Children First. But his aide, Tony Proffitt—who has worked for Bullock since long before he moved from the comptroller’s to the lieutenant governor’s office—said the Lieutenant Governor still supports a “very limited voucher program,” and that he left Putting Children First because, as was first reported by the Dallas Morning News, “it was engaging in partisan activity.” The specific partisan activity was a January 19 letter from Putting Children First Chairman Jimmy Mansour to Betsy DeVoss, the founder of the Amway company [2025 Editor’s Note: Betsy DeVos married the son of the founder of Amway]. The letter refers to last session’s “tremendous momentum for our forces, as evidenced by Lt. Governor Bob Bullock joining our effort.” And it mentions plans “to gain two additional seats in the senate, where we currently hold a slim majority.” (Mansour’s “we” is, bluntly, the Republican Party, which now holds a 17-14 advantage in the Senate.) The letter focuses, however, on the House: “There are eight crucial seats which we need to win in the Texas house, to obtain a Republican majority. By winning these seats we will ensure a new speaker of the house who will not attempt to block our legislation.”

“They assured him it wouldn’t be partisan,” Proffitt said. “Bullock still believes that a child who has been refused admission to another public school, after leaving a low-performing public school, should be allowed to attend a private school—as long as it doesn’t have a religious program.” 

Bullock spent only a few months as honorary chair of Putting Children First, and has since declined to discuss his resignation. In his six-sentence letter to Mansour, Bullock wrote, “since partisanship has been introduced into this effort I feel I can no longer serve as the group’s honorary chairman,” but he reaffirmed his support of “the concept of a limited, test program for school vouchers in Texas.” 

Support for a limited voucher program is one thing; membership in Putting Children First is another. 

To take Bullock’s metaphor a little farther from the Gulf, the Lieutenant Governor’s association with the voucher lobby is not so much about what you eat as who you eat with. Bullock’s political office (which, until last year when he announced that he will not run again, was a full-time, year-round political campaign) is as efficient and well-funded an operation as Texas has ever known. Because of that office and that operation, Bullock has often seemed omniscient; there is little that goes on in the capital that he does not know about.

And in all likelihood, he has known and knows about Putting Children First, which until last year operated as a thoroughly partisan political action committee called “The A+ PAC for Parental School Choice.” A+ was directed and funded by the same Jimmy Mansour to whom Bullock submitted his March 5 resignation from Putting Children First. And A+, controlled by Mansour and San Antonio physician and medical supply company owner James Leininger, spent a huge amount of money on legislative and State Board of Education races, with almost all of that money going to conservative Republican candidates. Although A+ focused on the House and Board of Education, it also worked to ensure that the Senate over which Bullock presided would have a Republican majority, giving at least $20,000 to the unsuccessful candidacy of Bob Reese and at least $5,000 to Senator Steve Ogden, who trounced a woefully underfunded Democratic opponent.

The total amount A+ contributed to Senate campaigns can’t be precisely determined from Ethics Commission filings, because Mansour and Leininger played a PAC shell game that makes it impossible to follow their money. For example, they funneled $100,700 through Leadership Texas ’96, a Republican Party funding mechanism that no longer exists and which never filed any disclosures with the Ethics Commission. They gave at least $73,000 to the Republican Party of Texas, and contributed $25,000 to 76 in 96. Seventy-six is the number required to hold a majority in the 150-member House; and 76 in 96—directed by Milton Reisner, aide to Midland Representative Tom Craddick, who chairs the House Republican Caucus—was one of the “big three” Republican Party PACs that spent several million dollars on elections. (Besides directly electing Republican candidates in the past two sessions, the PACs’ targeting of vulnerable incumbent Democrats has driven the cost of campaigns so high that the limited funding resources of Texas Democrats are constantly exhausted.)

Not only did A+ contribute $25,000 to 76 in 96, it provided $10,000 to the campaign of Representative Carl Isset, a freshman Christian Coalition candidate who remained just outside the right margin of House politics during the last session. A+ and Leininger himself gave at least $18,784 to Hollis Cain, who spent $70,000 in a futile attempt to defeat House Speaker Pete Laney in 1996, and who is Laney’s Republican opponent in 1998. (The exact totals are uncertain, because once A+ money was commingled with moneys of Leadership Texas ’96, 76 in 96, and the Republican Party of Texas, it couldn’t be separately followed. And far more money was spent on Cain’s race by various interest groups working to defeat the Speaker.)

So it should not have been surprising to Lieutenant Governor Bullock that Mansour would write to Betsy DeVoss, sitting atop Amway’s corporate pyramid [2025 Editor’s Note: See above], to ask for $125,000, to help “ensure a new speaker of the house who will not attempt to block our legislation.” (In the aftermath of Bullock’s resignation, Mansour now denies that he wrote the letter, and his various public relations subcontractors, which include Temerlin McClain Public Relations and McDonald and Associates, spent the week following the resignation working on a credible account of who did. Readers might ask themselves one question: How likely is it that an employee of a political action committee would send out a letter to a major corporate funder, over the signature of the PAC’s director—without informing the person whose signature would appear at the bottom of the letter?)

“I trust,” wrote Mansour—in an underlined postscript that also referred to an enclosed summary of races on the “targeting list”—”that you will keep the information in this letter totally confidential.” A similar letter went to Wal-Mart heir John Walton, who responded with a $100,000 check. As Putting Children First has raised only $100,190 thus far, Walton is its sole funder. Walton, who has supported voucher programs in other states, also owns interests in private schools. In 1996, Walton contributed $100,000 to the A+ PAC, which was largely funded by Mansour and Leininger.

“This is not about the A+ PAC and it’s not about any [funding] lineage,” said Chuck McDonald, in response to a question about the funders and policy agenda shared by A+ and Putting Children First. McDonald, who worked as spokesperson for Ann Richards when she was governor, now owns a public relations firm, also among those hired by Putting Children First. “They formed a group in January of ’97 to go out and do one thing and one thing only,” McDonald said. “The PAC had one purpose and still has one purpose. It exists to give equally to Democrats and Republicans” who support school voucher legislation. McDonald said the PAC gave to candidates of both parties in this year’s primaries, focusing on incumbents who had supported vouchers in the past and who had drawn primary opponents. “Ron Wilson [a Houston Democrat] had an opponent and he got funding. And Ken Grusendorf [an Arlington Republican] had an opponent and he got funding.”

“Our contributions were bipartisan,” McDonald insisted. Public disclosure forms filed with the Ethics Commission do indicate that Putting Children First gave $13,500 to thirteen Republican incumbents and $8,327 to seven Democratic incumbents. All the Democrats are either black or Hispanic, and represent inner-city urban districts (with the exception of the indicted and all-but-convicted Gilbert Serna [2025 Editor’s Note: He later pleaded guilty], who represents El Paso’s Lower Valley). McDonald also said there will always be some imbalance in contributions, “as more Republicans than Democrats support vouchers.”

At this point in the election cycle, Putting Children First’s current contributions are almost irrelevant. The PAC raised $100,190 and spent $20,313 on administrative costs and candidates in the Democratic and Republican primaries. It is in general elections that PACs make a big splash, and in the last election A+ PAC (Mansour, Leininger, Walton, and several big, out-of-state funders) made sure that conservative Republican candidates were awash in money. So Putting Children First has been bi-partisan thus far. But the last time these funders got together as the A+ PAC, the contributions were indeed “imbalanced.” The A+. PAC provided a total of $8,500 to Democratic House candidates. To Republicans, it contributed $587,445. As with the Putting Children First money, almost all the A+ Democratic money went to minority, inner-city Democrats, who now find themselves in the seemingly awkward position of accepting contributions from corporate and Christian right funders whose explicit and much-announced goals include making the Democrats a minority party, and reducing funding for public education. In this battle, “vouchers” are simply a means to an end—and that end is defined by Republican funders.

Dr. James Leininger, for example, got involved in political campaigns in 1990, when he decided to bankroll Republican candidates for the Supreme Court—at a time when its Democratic majority included Ted Robertson, Oscar Mauzy, and Bill Kilgarlin. Leininger hired Wal-Mart public relations director Fritz Steiger, formed Texans for Justice, and relentlessly went after Robertson for accepting $120,000 in campaign contributions from South Texas oilman Clinton Manges. But, according to R.G. Ratcliffe of the Houston Chronicle, 86 percent ($196,000) of the money spent by Texans for Justice was Leininger’s money, which ultimately resulted in one of the most anti-consumer, anti-plaintiff, pro-corporate high courts in the country. Leininger—first turned on to politics in 1987 by a CBS News 60 Minutes report on the Texas Supreme Court—has been investing in his own candidates ever since, spending last year $550,000—or as Ratcliffe observed, “about fifty percent more than the $365,775 spent by the wealthy political action committee of the Texas Medical Association.”

Leininger has also collaborated with Mansour, who made his fortune in telecommunications, to leverage Texas money by bringing in funders like Walton, of Bentonville, Arkansas; John Patrick Rooney of Indianapolis ($50,000); and Robert L. Cone of Elverson, Pennsylvania ($100,000). Leininger, and to a lesser extent, Mansour, provided all of the funding for A+, except what was received from the aforementioned out-of-state funders—and a single grassroots level contribution of $5,000 from Robert Schoolfield of Austin. I asked Glen Lewis, an African-American Democrat from Fort Worth, if he had any misgivings about such funding, considering that most of the $685,000 Leininger spent on lobbying and campaigns last session was used against Democrats and Democratic Party interests. “I didn’t go to them,” Lewis said, “they came to me because I was interested in the issue.” Lewis, one of three Democrats who remain on Putting Children First’s Legislative Advisory Council, said he favors vouchers because of the extremely poor performance of the inner city public schools that his constituents are forced into. (The other Democrats still with Putting Children First are Ron Wilson, of Houston, and Laredo Representative Henry Cuellar, who sent Mansour a letter complaining about the letter that provoked Bullock’s resignation.) I asked Lewis if he had any objection to accepting campaign contributions from a group whose huge investment in elections is moving the state’s political center farther and farther to the right. “Texas politics?” Lewis said. “How could it get any farther right than it already is?” (For the answer to that question, Representative Lewis will only have to watch the next two election cycles.)

Domingo Garcia, a Democratic representative from Dallas, was more reflective than Lewis. “One, I resigned [from Putting Children First’s Legislative Advisory Board]. And, two, I support public-to-public and not public-to-private vouchers,” Garcia said, adding that his affiliation with Putting Children First had nothing to do with partisan politics. He said he will take advantage of whatever resources are available to pass voucher legislation that will allow students to transfer from low-performing public schools to high-performing public schools. “I have a different agenda. The Republicans are in this for the privatization and the free market aspect. I want to improve the public schools,” Garcia said. “I support increasing teacher salaries and decreasing class size to eighteen.” But until schools, and in particular inner-city schools, are improved, Garcia said, he will work to pass a voucher bill that will require school districts with high academic performance to accept students from schools with low academic performance. A law that Cuellar got through the 1997 session allows students to transfer from low-to high-performing schools, but doesn’t require the high-performing schools to accept students. Garcia said he will carry a bill that will require schools to admit students whose home-district schools cannot meet their needs. And the state, he said, should cover the students’ transportation costs. “I have seven students in my district who want to transfer to suburban schools that refuse to admit them,” Garcia said. “They think if they accept these seven students, they’ll have a whole wave of transfers and their standards will fall.”

Garcia’s pragmatic argument may seem to make principled liberal opposition to vouchers seem somewhat precious. But in historical perspective, the battle over school vouchers is not finally about vouchers at all; it’s about real racial integration in Texas (and U.S.) public schools. Garcia has asked House Speaker Pete Laney for a seat on the education committee, describes education as the biggest crisis we face, and said the dilemma he faces is that he cannot “write off a generation of children while we’re fighting to improve the horrible public schools they’re forced to attend.” So like other legislators who represent inner-city school districts, Garcia has decided to make a deal with the devil. But the devil on the other side of this particular deal happens to be unalterably opposed to funding for public education, and moreover, the devil has more money to spend on elections than Garcia or any other progressive funders could raise if they mortgaged everything they owned.

There is an enormous amount of cynicism attached to this sort of issue-related campaign giving. What looks like principle at a distance, is politics-as-usual at close range. Minority inner-city candidates have accepted $500 to $1,000 checks, but their entire intake was less than the $10,000 provided for right-wing Lubbock Democrat Carl Isset—who will vote against teacher raises, smaller classes, and improved curriculum as long as he is an elected legislator drawing breath. And he is just one of a pack of Christian right franchises elected by Mansour, Leininger, Walton, and a myriad of other Republican PAC funders.

If you want to understand what is driving the Texas legislative movement for school vouchers, don’t read Chuck McDonald’s lips, or Bob Bullock’s resignation letter. Read instead the canceled checks of James Leininger, and Jimmy Mansour, and John Walton—if you can find them, as the funders will now re-PAC and try to recover from an embarrassing episode. Short term, these guys will use inner-city children as a first step, and even spring for a few tickets for poor minority kids to attend rich majority schools. In the long term, as Republican Representative Rick Williamson said after the House came as close as ever to passing a voucher program in the 1997 session, losing only on a tie vote (67-67): “We’re going after the whole system.”

The post Who’s Paying for Public School Vouchers? (1998) appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By JOSH FUNK, Associated Press Business Writer

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Rancher Brett Kenzy hopes President Donald Trump’s tariffs will make imported beef expensive enough that Americans will turn to cattle raised at home for all their hamburgers and steaks.

That might raise prices enough to give Kenzy and others the incentive they need to expand their herds for the first time in decades. But doing that would take at least two years, and it’s not clear if Trump’s tariffs on most of the world besides China are high enough to make that worth the investment.

“If we can just fix a few key things, I think that we can reinvigorate rural America,” said the South Dakota rancher. “Just get these imports under control, get them to a level that we can understand and plan on, and then let us fill the void. And I think that the American rancher can do that.”

Trump has enjoyed overwhelming support in rural parts of the country in his three campaigns for president. Still, the uncertainty created by the trade war he instigated has given some ranchers pause as they’ve watched cattle prices drop after the tariffs were announced.

“I just don’t like manipulated markets because somebody is going to artificially win and somebody is going to artificially lose,” said Bryant Kagay, who raises and feeds cattle as well as growing crops on his farm in northwest Missouri. “And how do I know it’s not going to be me?”

Ranchers cautiously optimistic

Ranchers hope the tariffs might create an incentive for them to raise more cattle, and the National Cattlemen trade group is salivating at the idea of selling more cuts of meat overseas if the tariffs lead to new trade deals with countries that don’t buy much U.S. beef.

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That’s a big if — Trump has said dozens of countries have reached out to negotiate new trade deals, but no agreements have been reached.

About the only thing clear so far is that American ranchers will likely lose one of their biggest markets as a result of the 125% tariffs imposed by China in response to Trump. They sold $1.6 billion worth of beef there last year, and since many ranchers also raise crops, they are reeling about the prospect of losing China as a market for those, too.

Most beef exports to China are already on hold because the certificates from that country that meat plants need weren’t renewed at most beef plants in the United States after they expired in March. So the U.S. Meat Export Federation said few American beef plants are even eligible to ship to China right now.

Kenzy hopes Trump’s tariffs represent a lasting change in U.S. trade policy. So far the tariffs have been changing so much since they were announced that ranchers can’t count on them yet.

“If this is just a short-term negotiating tactic — Tarzan beating his chest — then I would say that that would be an epic failure because that will not result in reshoring industry,” Kenzy said.

The problem, as Kenzy and other members of the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America see it, is that the more than 4 billion pounds of beef that’s imported every year — along with cattle brought in from other countries to be slaughtered here — keeps cattle prices lower.

Much of what is imported is lean beef trimmings that meatpackers mix with fattier beef produced here in the United States to produce the varieties of ground beef that domestic consumers want. Even though Trump placed most of his proposed tariffs on hold, the across-the-board 10% tariffs he imposed for 90 days will make imported beef more expensive, so consumers are likely to see the price of hamburger increase.

Even if ranchers decided to raise more cattle to help replace those imports, it would take at least two years to breed and raise them. That means meat processors will likely pay higher prices for that imported beef for at least that long. And the ongoing drought across most of the West will continue to make it difficult to raise more cattle.

Plus, if American ranchers want to produce more of that lean beef they might have to change the way they raise their animals because the entire system in this country is designed to produce fattier meat to get deliciously marbled and tender steaks that help ranchers make the most money. Kansas State University agricultural economist Glynn Tonsor said most of the lean beef America buys comes from Australia and New Zealand where cattle are fed grass — not grain — their entire lives, and that’s an entirely different system.

US ranchers hope tariffs level playing field but uncertainty remains

The number of cattle being raised across the country has been shrinking for decades to reach the current historic lows of around 28 million, but Texas A&M livestock economist David Anderson said even though that’s less than two-thirds of the number of cattle there were in 1975, more beef — some 26.7 billion pounds — was actually produced last year. That’s because the American beef industry has become so good at feeding cattle and breeding larger animals that now every head of cattle produces more meat. Anderson said that means there’s less incentive to expand the herd.

Casey Maher, owner of the Maher Angus Ranch in Morristown, S.D., said he hopes Trump’s tariffs will level the playing field for American beef producers.

“We’re optimistic and we’re going to stay the course,” said Maher, a third-generation rancher. “We’ve gone through tough times, and if it’s for the greater good, I think ranchers are all in.”

Not all of them, though. Kagay, the Missouri farmer, said uncertainty causes problems of its own.

Bryant Kagay holds a tool in the workshop of the farm he co-owns with his father and grandfather in Amity, Missouri, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Nick Ingram)

“I’m not real confident about these tariffs,” he said. “Will they stick around? Will they not stick around? Can I count on them? What exactly is going to happen? You know, nobody knows. So it makes it hard for me to plan my business. I just don’t like it.”

That uncertainty could extend well beyond farming and ranching if it creates new fears about the economy as a whole. If consumers buy less beef because they are worried about their grocery budgets, it won’t matter how much beef is imported.

“You’re less likely to pay up for a ribeye steak if you’re worried about losing your job,” Tonsor said.

Associated Press writer Sarah Raza contributed to this report from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.