As a rainstorm rolled in last Friday evening, hundreds of people eagerly filed through metal detectors at an 1,800-seat performing arts center in McAllen—the urban hub of Hidalgo County in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley—ahead of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ 13th stop on his nationwide “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.

Normally a stage for orchestra concerts and comedy shows, the venue, located about five miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, filled up now for a different reason: People from every age group, worried about the country’s future under Donald Trump’s control, crowded in to hear Sanders and Austin Democratic Congressman Greg Casar rally up the working class.

“McAllen, Texas, can be the birthplace of a new Democratic Party that puts working people first, kicks out the corrupt politicians regardless of party, and saves our country for everyday people,” Casar said, as he spoke ahead of introducing Sanders. 

The Valley, the four-county region of around 1.4 million mostly Latino residents at Texas’ southern tip, is no stranger to the controversial influence of billionaires like Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX has taken over what used to be Boca Chica Village and turned it into Texas’ newest city, Starbase, now mainly inhabited by SpaceX employees. Destroyed rocket parts litter Texan and Mexican beaches, and a recent SpaceX test ship exploded late at night startling nearby Brownsville residents and littering debris.

“Elon Musk does not own the Valley,” Casar—a second-term U.S. House member representing a district stretching from the capital city to San Antonio who was recently minted chair of the body’s progressive caucus—declared to the crowd.

Attendees at the McAllen event (Michael Gonzalez)

Sanders’ nationwide tour to mobilize individuals especially in conservative regions comes amid increased uncertainty about further impacts of Trump’s policies on the working class. During a time of restructuring in the Democratic Party, following last year’s presidential election defeat, Sanders pushed a populist message urging unity and action against oligarchic control and highlighted the profound impact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have had in communities like the Valley.

“Right now in McAllen and other parts of this country we’re seeing what authoritarianism is about in its ugliest way,” the senator said. We’re seeing people being stopped on the street being picked up at their workplace, thrown into vans and taken God knows where without due process.”

Sanders continued: “What Trump is doing is not just waging an attack against the working class of this country. He is moving America very rapidly and dangerously into an authoritarian form of society.”

Since 2016, support for Donald Trump has increased steadily throughout previously deep-blue far South Texas. In that year’s presidential election, Hillary Clinton won all Rio Grande Valley counties in a landslide. In Hidalgo County, Clinton prevailed over Trump by 40 points. But, in 2020, Biden carried the county by only 17, and in 2024 Trump won it by three—part of a stunning sweep of all four Valley counties.

Jon Taylor, chair of the University of Texas at San Antonio’s political science and geography department, believes that despite Trump’s electoral performance in last year’s election, the Democratic Party still has ample opportunity to seize the narrative and use populism to appeal to voters’ frustrations and anger. 

“Trump had this appeal to South Texas voters apparently because he’s strong, or he’s forceful,” Taylor told the Texas Observer. “I think Bernie might be really good at being able to just drive home that point about: What has it meant to you by voting for this guy? [Trump] cares about billionaires; he cares about megacorporations. He cares about giving all of them tax cuts and benefits.”

Despite increased support for Republicans in the region for almost ten years, Sanders was extremely popular during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, in which he won every populous border county in Texas.

Hidalgo County Democratic Party Chair Richard Gonzales describes himself as a moderate Democrat and personally views the region’s makeup as conservative and family-based. The area’s long-time Democratic elected officials at all levels tend to be conservatives on issues ranging from fossil fuels to guns to abortion. No local elected officials spoke at the Sanders rally.

But Gonzales sees the appeal of progressive policies, saying he thinks they may be part of the recipe for turning his county blue again. “When we look at what Senator Sanders stands for, I think it’s starting to become more okay to kind of buy into that idea, because we’re seeing what the opposite can do to us down here,” he told the Observer. 

Life in the Valley is largely a quiet existence, but near-daily ICE raids on local communities and workplaces have changed that. These aids have targeted businesses and construction sites from Brownsville to South Padre Island to McAllen. Notably, a bakery in Los Fresnos was targeted by ICE and HSI agents around mid-February, leading to multiple arrests including the owners. Pulgas once packed with people buying and selling goods including produce, antiques, and second-hand items are now oftentimes empty due to the fear of arrests by ICE agents. The Republican mayor of McAllen, Javier Villalobos, recently posted on Facebook that immigration enforcement is “negatively impacting all sectors of our economy” and called for the Trump administration to relax enforcement on all industries in need of labor.

Some locals at the Friday rally, like Michael Dutcher, expressed deep concern that their way of life is being threatened under Trump’s second administration. “Being a part of something to counter that is important to me,” Dutcher said. He had only heard of Sanders’ event hours before the start time and immediately made plans to attend.

Congressman Greg Casar (right) with Senator Bernie Sanders (Michael Gonzalez)

Sergio Salinas, a business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1015 in McAllen, showed up to the rally with several union members who sat on the stage behind the lectern. He referenced how Donald Trump threw around the word “union” on the campaign trail during last year’s election, yet he doesn’t believe that Republicans truly have the backs of unions. “The Republicans say that the unions are good, but where are they at?” Salinas said.

Standing beside vendors selling Bernie merch, attendee Danny Diaz, a local democratic precinct chair and longtime political organizer, said he hopes that change in the Valley’s political scene is soon to come. 

“I don’t think Latinos in South Texas are married to the Republican Party,” he said. “I think people respond well to Bernie Sanders down here. … I am willing to bet that if we really absorb the energy like the energy that we saw tonight, that we could bounce back and sweep these counties back to the Dem side.”

The post Can Economic Populism Win Back the Rio Grande Valley? appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The woman who drowned in White Bear Lake on Sunday afternoon has been identified as a Metro Transit police sergeant who led the department’s Homeless Action Team.

Sgt. Beverly Rodriguez, 40, of Woodbury. (Courtesy of the National Latino Peace Officers Association)

Sgt. Beverly Rodriguez, 40, of Woodbury fell into the water around 2:30 p.m. Sunday. She was found about 40 minutes later by the Washington County Fire/Rescue Dive team and later pronounced dead at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, authorities said.

Rodriguez was a longtime member of the National Latino Peace Officers Association. She served in the Minnesota Chapter since 2014 on the chapter board, and she has also served on the National Board as the Northern Region vice president since 2021, according to the National Latino Peace Officers Association.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the sudden and unexpected loss of Beverly Rodriguez on June 22nd, 2025,” officials with the Minnesota chapter of the National Latino Peace Officers Association posted on social media. “Bev was our friend, colleague, and longtime member of the National Latino Peace Officers Association.”

A fundraiser has been established to help the Rodriguez family “to ease the burden … during this challenging time.”

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office is investigating.

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The U.S. men’s national soccer team is coming to the Twin Cities this weekend.

The USMNT will play Costa Rica in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup at 6 p.m. Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium. Teams in the other, 3 p.m. quarterfinal at the Minneapolis venue will be set Tuesday night.

The semifinals will be July 2 and final is July 6.

All four of Minnesota United’s international players are in contention to make it the Gold Cup’s knockout rounds: Dayne St. Clair and Tani Oluwaseyi (Canada), Carlos Harvey (Panama) and Joseph Rosales (Honduras). They will play their final group-stage games Tuesday.

The Americans are 3-0 in the tournament mostly made up of North America, Central America and Caribbean teams. The U.S. beat Haiti 2-1 on Sunday, topped Saudi Arabia 1-0 on Thursday and blew out Trinidad and Tobago 5-0 on June 15. Saudi Arabia also came out of that four-team group.

Before the tournament, the U.S. had lost four straight matches under new head coach Mauricio Pochettino.

By Robbie Sequeira, Stateline.org

The Trump administration is pushing to reshape the federal housing safety net by slashing spending and shifting the burden of housing millions of people to states, which may be ill-equipped to handle the mission.

President Donald Trump’s recent budget request to Congress for fiscal year 2026, a preliminary plan released in early May and known as “skinny” because a more robust ask will follow, outlines a 44% cut to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, including a 43% reduction in rental assistance programs that support more than 9 million Americans.

Trump also wants to consolidate federal housing aid, which includes programs such as Housing Choice Vouchers and public housing, into block grants — or finite amounts of money that states would administer. The proposal also would cap eligibility for many aid recipients at two years, and significantly limit federal oversight over how states dole out housing aid to low-income, disabled and older renters.

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The approach tracks suggestions outlined in the Heritage Foundation playbook known as Project 2025, in which first-term Trump advisers and other conservatives detailed how a second Trump term might look. The chapter on HUD recommends limiting a person’s time on federal assistance and “devolving many HUD functions to states and localities.”

To that end, Trump’s new housing aid budget request would put states in charge, urging them to create new systems and removing federal regulatory certainty that residents, landlords and developers rely on for low-income housing.

Trump’s request also proposes new rules, such as a two-year time limit on the receipt of Housing Choice Vouchers, formerly known as Section 8 vouchers, for households that do not include persons with disabilities or older adults. The vouchers, federal money paid directly to landlords, help eligible families afford rent in the private market.

Trump’s allies call the changes responsible, while detractors worry about rising homelessness among those who now receive aid.

Among the nearly 4.6 million households receiving HUD housing assistance in the 2020 census, the average household was made up of two people, and the average annual income was just under $18,000, according to a department report last year.

In testimony to Congress this month about the proposed fiscal 2026 budget, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said that HUD rental assistance is meant to be temporary, “the same way a treadway facilitates the crossing of an obstacle.”

“The block grant process will empower states to be more thoughtful and precise in their distribution and spending of taxpayer dollars,” Turner said.

The current budget reconciliation package, the tax-and-spending bill named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, doesn’t address individual Housing Choice Vouchers or send federal housing aid back to states. However, it would offer tax credits to developers of affordable housing and expand areas that could qualify for additional favorable tax cuts. That bill passed the House and is now undergoing consideration in the Senate.

Trump’s hopes for next year

The president’s fiscal year 2026 budget request serves as an outline of the administration’s vision for next year’s federal spending.

Congress — specifically the House and Senate Appropriations committees — must draft, negotiate and pass appropriations bills, which ultimately decide how much funding programs like rental assistance will receive.

Trump’s budget request provides sparse details on how much housing aid the federal government would give to each state, and how it would oversee spending. Housing advocates and state agencies are concerned.

“A big piece of the proposal is essentially re-creating rental assistance as we know it, and turning it into a state rental assistance block grant program,” said Kim Johnson, senior director of policy director at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Experts say any resulting aid cuts would disproportionately affect families with children, older adults and individuals with disabilities, many of whom rely on rental subsidies and support to remain stably housed in high-rent markets.

“It would completely change how households might be able to receive rental assistance of any kind,” said Sonya Acosta, a senior policy analyst with the center. “It combines five of these programs that millions of people rely on, cuts the funding almost in half, and then leaves it completely to states to decide how to use that funding.”

That’s a shift most states can’t afford, say housing advocates.

A state-by-state analysis by the National Alliance to End Homelessness shows the highest rates of housing assistance are in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, along with a few blue states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.

“There’s no way to cut 43% of funding for rental assistance without people losing that assistance or their housing security,” said Johnson, of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

And it’s not just urban centers that would be hit; rural areas of Mississippi and Louisiana also have high rates of federal housing aid.

“A rural community who solely relies on federal funding would be even more impacted,” Johnson added.

While state housing finance agencies proved during the pandemic that they can rapidly deploy federal funding, Lisa Bowman, director of marketing and communications at the National Council of State Housing Agencies, warned that the budget’s shift to block grants would require sufficient funding, a clear transition plan and strong oversight to ensure success.

Housing authorities are requesting further guidance from the feds and members of Congress, and more detail is needed on how any block-grant process would work, Bowman wrote in an emailed statement to Stateline.

“There is still a risk of overregulation and micromanagement with a block grant,” she wrote. “That said, for any type of new block grant to the states to work, there would need to be a transition period both to ensure states can build the necessary infrastructure and oversight and to test and train new systems with the private sector, local government, and nonprofit organizations that would interact with it.”

In New York City, which operates the nation’s largest housing voucher program, officials didn’t outline what steps they would take if Trump’s proposed cuts become reality, but a spokesperson said the plans would hurt residents.

Howard Husock, a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, believes the most innovative aspect of the Trump proposal is the introduction of time limits on housing assistance, a mechanism not currently used in HUD’s rental programs.

But he cautioned that a blanket two-year time limit — especially if applied to existing tenants — would be “a recipe for chaos,” particularly in high-need areas such as New York City. Instead, he supports a phased approach focusing on new, non-disabled, non-elderly tenants.

“Block grants would allow states to move away from one-size-fits-all and apply rules based on their own housing needs,” Husock said to Stateline in an interview.

Affordable housing advocates disagree.

“If passed, the president’s proposed budget would be devastating for all federally assisted tenants,” said Michael Horgan, press secretary for the New York City Housing Authority in a statement to Stateline. “Block grants, program funding cuts, and time limits will only worsen the current housing crisis.”

A recent analysis of 100 metro areas by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that households using housing vouchers are more likely to live in higher income areas than those with other federal rental assistance.

“There is a high share of these households using (other) federal rental assistance in higher-poverty areas,” Gartland, the center’s researcher, explained, noting that programs such as the Housing Choice Vouchers are a rare but essential tool for expanding housing mobility.

“If you’re cutting the programming by 40%, you’re just putting additional strain on that program and just limiting that potential.”

For housing providers, uncertainty is growing

For property owners and landlords, the proposed shift in federal assistance and housing aid to the states isn’t just a policy question, it’s a business risk.

Alexandra Alvarado, director of education at the American Apartment Owners Association, said many smaller landlords are closely following proposed changes to the voucher program.

“Section 8 is a stabilizing force, especially for mom-and-pop landlords,” she said. “Many have had loyal tenants for years and rely on that steady income.”

According to Alvarado, landlords — especially small operators — have come to view housing vouchers not just as a public good, but also as a reliable business model where rent is often on time and predictable.

But with the proposed changes placing administration in the hands of state governments, landlords fear a breakdown in consistency.

“If the administration is serious about shifting responsibility to states, landlords will need a lot more clarity, and fast,” Alvarado said. “These programs are supposed to offer certainty. If states run them inconsistently or inefficiently, landlords may exit the market altogether.”

The transition itself, she added, may be destabilizing.

“You’re turning an ecosystem upside down. Change too many parts of the system at once, and you risk unintended domino effects.”

While developers may benefit from new tax incentives in the budget, Alvarado said that doesn’t offset the instability small landlords fear.

“Most mom-and-pop landlords don’t want to evict or raise rent, especially during hard times,” she said. “They just want to provide stable housing and be treated fairly.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.