TX New Home Financing in Texas

The crowd on A-Wing A-Section at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit is about to get thinned.

Foreign nationals living in Texas must now prove they're in the country legally before getting a state driver's license or identification card - one that will look markedly different from those issued to U.S. citizens.

"While we welcome legally documented individuals to the Lone Star State, we must ensure that this privilege is not abused by those seeking to enter our country illegally," Gov. Rick Perry said. "These new guidelines will provide additional security."

The licenses and identification cards, which will be vertical instead of horizontal, will also be stamped with the words "temporary visitor" and will list the date their legal residency expires. Advocates for immigrant rights say the change could facilitate profiling.

"If you're an employer, or you're a person who rents out apartments, and you see a vertical license, that could have a negative impact," Dallas City Council member Steve Salazar said. "There's going to be an added incentive for people not to get a license."

Under the new guidelines, DPS will not issue or renew licenses or ID cards for any immigrant who is here illegally, or who has overstayed his or her residency.

Nor will the agency give them to immigrants who have permission to stay for fewer than six months.

DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said people who are living in the country illegally and show up to get a license without proper identification will simply be turned away. Their information will not be passed on to authorities.

"They won't be arrested ... unless there is already a warrant out for their arrest," Ms. Mange said.

U.S. citizens will not have to provide any additional evidence; birth certificates and other information already on file with the state is sufficient. And online and mail-in renewals will still be allowed as long as they include proper documentation.

It's time for Americans to look beyond their borders, superstar Texas preacher T.D. Jakes said Thursday as he prepared to hold his trademark Megafest in Johannesburg, South Africa -- outside the U.S. for the ...

Texas officials are prepared to offer $100 million in incentives to the federal government to lure a new laboratory for dangerous diseases to San Antonio, Gov.

Democratic Senate candidate Rick Noriega wants to use tonight's televised debate with Republican Senator John Cornyn to impeach Cornyn's leadership for Texas in Washington.

As Galveston Island continues to dig itself out from the refuse, has anyone heard what effect Hurricane Ike has had on medical care delivery in Texas prisons? Today's news makes me think the University of Texas ...

Foreign-made buses that don't meet U.S. safety standards can drive across the nation's southern border to operate in this country because of gaps in safety laws intended to ensure those imported buses are safe, ...

People who aren't U.S. citizens must now prove they are living legally in the country before receiving or renewing a Texas driver's license or identification card.

If you were hoping to jump on the nibbling fish pedicure bandwagon, it might have just passed you by.

A convicted child molester who pushed for the Texas law that allowed him to be voluntarily castrated more than a decade ago may go back to prison for allegedly possessing sexually explicit material.

More than 76,000 damage claims from Hurricane Ike have been filed with the Texas-backed windstorm insurance association, which expects to pay billions of dollars to policy holders for losses, the fund's general ...

John McCain doesn't plan on spending a cent to carry Texas: No offices, no staffers, no television commercials and no campaign appearances.

The first meal in Dublin forever transformed our family's favorite cold-weather comfort fare: beef stew.

In exchange for his support for Hillary in the primary, Chris Bell gets a big ol' bone thrown his way: Bill Clinton will come to Houston on Monday, Oct.

BOLIVAR PENINSULA, Texas : Jerrith Baird last spoke to his grandmother by telephone the night Hurricane Ike swept away most of the houses on this narrow spit of land.

Despite a Constitutional ban on legislative bonus pay, state senators have paid out over $650,000 in temporary pay increases to top aides over the last two years.

For years, Massachusetts was known derisively as 'Taxachusetts.' But voters could help shed that label in November by completely eliminating the state's income tax in a single stroke.

If approved, the ballot initiative would wipe out 40 percent of state revenues and give back to each taxpayer an average of $3,600.

The Massachusetts proposal is the most notable of several tax-cutting questions that will appear next month on ballots around the nation.

Others include a North Dakota initiative to cut individual income tax rates in half and trim corporate rates by 15 percent; an Arizona measure to mandate that any initiatives requiring spending or tax increases be approved by majority of all registered voters, not just those casting ballots; and a Maine plan to repeal new taxes on beer, wine and soda.

Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, is shown in Austin, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2007.

HOUSTON A dozen condemned Texas inmates, including one set to die next week and one of the few women on death row in the state, lost appeals Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court, moving them closer to ...

Police have blown up a suspicious backpack outside a Texas mosque and arrested a man who claimed it contained a bomb.

Austin police Lt. Cedric Hudson says 46-year-old Azzam Baytie threatened the North Austin Muslim Community Center on Sunday.

The Austin American-Statesman reports that police said Baytie also claimed to have a gun.

Authorities X-rayed the backpack and found electronic parts inside. They destroyed it as a precaution.

Hudson says Baytie was arrested on charges of criminal trespassing and terroristic threat. Police do not know if he has an attorney.