Heriberto Perez Lara
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — EPISD’s board of trustees voted to declare financial exigency yesterday amid financial struggles the district is currently facing.
ABC-7 reached out to the El Paso Federation of Teachers and to EPISD for comment on last night’s vote.
Watch the full story in our later newscasts.
Nina Gallegos
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — The El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees declared financial exigency at Tuesday’s board meeting. Its decision leaves them with a $4 million dollar budget deficit for next fiscal year.
The board was presented with three options to address budget concerns moving into next fiscal year:
Option 1: EPISD would not declare financial exigency. This would leave it with a $37.3 million dollar budget deficit equivalent to 15 days of fund balance.
Option 2: EPISD declares financial exigency. It cuts 40 contracted employees, 150 at-will and 92 teachers. It would have a $1.4 million dollar deficit, equivalent to 38.5 days fund balance.
Option 3: EPISD declares financial exigency. It cuts 40 contracted employees, 150 at-will and 54 teachers. The school district would still be at a $4.3 million dollar deficit, equivalent to 38.5 days of fund balance. This option saves 38 teacher positions.
The board chose option three.
The recommended fund balance is between 60 and 90 days, according to the Texas Education Agency. The fund balance is the calculation of assets as compared to liabilities.
These projections are made on the assumption the district meets the 90% rule. That’s the Texas mandated minimum attendance requirement. Students must attend class at least 90% of days of the school year, regardless of whether those absences are excused.
If EPISD does not meet the 90% rule, it will get less money from the state. It plans to meet this goal through attendance incentives next school year.
EPISD is also planning to cut its substitute teacher fund. That will save the district $4 million dollars. The board said they will move some teachers into permanent sub positions instead of cutting those positions completely.
The next step for EPISD is to decide which positions they will cut. That will happen June 15. On June 16, they will adopt the budget. By the beginning of August, the district will have the final budget numbers and know how to move forward.
“Financial exigency means that the financial resources of a school district are insufficient to support its instructional programs or it is unable to finance the full compensation of staff for the current or next fiscal year,” according to the Texas Education Agency.
Nichole Gomez
El Paso, TX (KVIA-TV)-The community is invited to attend a run and walk to support 6-year-old Lucas Monreal as he faces an aggressive brain tumor (DIPG).
This family-friendly event includes a 1-mile walk, a run, and a prayer ceremony.
Date: June 27, 2026
Time: 8:00 AM (Run starts)
Location: Crosspoint Church, El Paso, TX
Cost/Donation: This is a donation-based event, and contributions will be accepted on the day of the walk.
Gabrielle Lopez
EL PASO, Texas — From the streets to the frontlines, an El Paso rescue dog became the first rescue to earn a U.S. Border Patrol Critical Incident Response K9 certification.
Thursday, ABC-7 met Chloe, who is about two-and-a-half years old and her handler, Agent Miguel Carrillo.
Chloe’s badge symbolizes a vital mission — to provide comfort and support agents and their families during difficult times, according to the Border Patrol.
The USBP Canine Academy and the El Paso Rescue League to give dogs like Chloe a second chance to find a place to belong.
After leaving the shelter, Chloe went through 10 weeks of training to earn her badge, according to Carrillo.
He said 58 dogs have gone through the process, but in the end, Chloe was the only one to make it through the program.
“To think that she was once, you know running the streets, abandoned, and now she’s on the frontlines supporting our people. That’s just wonderful,” Carrillo said.
“For me, it was love at first sight the second we saw each other,” Carrillo said. “Ever since I handled her for the first time, we clicked.”
Chloe has already done her duty to bring comfort to her community. Wednesday, visited a youth camp in Louisiana that teaches children how to overcome grief.
Officials set up an Instagram for Chloe where they will post her journey as a certified K9.
Gabrielle Lopez
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — A 23-year-old man received several prison sentences for a deadly shooting at a Northeast El Paso Park, according to a news release from District Attorney James Montoya.
Robert Privett pleaded guilty Thursday to three charges from a 2025 shooting at Nations Tobin Park: murder, aggravated assault causing paralysis and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
He was sentenced to 47 years for murder, 47 years for assault causing paralysis and 20 years for aggravated assault. His sentences will run concurrently, the release said.
The shooting killed 34-year-old Jose Gonzalez, paralyzed 22-year-old Ethan Ramos and injured 22-year-old Jacob Gonzalez.
Investigators said the victims met Privett at the park to collect money he owed. Privett fired a gun at them when they arrived in a vehicle. He fired more than a dozen shots before running away, officials said.
Gonzalez, who drove the car, sped off and crashed into a tree.
Court documents also reveal that Privett has prior charges for aggravated assault of a public servant, burglary of habitation, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
First Assistant District Attorney Rebeca Tarango prosecuted the case.
Gabrielle Lopez
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — A 23-year-old New Mexico man received a life sentence in a federal court in El Paso for murder, carjacking and kidnapping, the U.S. Attorney’s Office Western District of Texas said Thursday.
Brayden Matthew Alvarado carjacked a man, drove him from New Mexico into El Paso, and shot him in the head, according to court documents and evidence presented at the trial. It happened in December 2023.
The Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division investigated the crime scene and found the boy of Abel Patrick Tarin, who had been reported missing by the Las Cruces Police Department and Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office.
A photo of Abel Tarin, who was shot and killed after being carjacked and kidnapped.
Investigator’s found Tarin’s vehicle and discovered blood, a gunshot hole and Alvarado’s fingerprints, officials said. The evidence led to Alvarado’s arrest on Dec. 22, 2023.
A federal jury found him guilty of kidnapping and carjacking resulting in death on Aug. 14, 2025, officials said.
On Dec. 23, 2023, Tarin’s community held a vigil at the Sam’s Club on N. Telshor Boulevard in Las Cruces, which is where he worked.
The kidnapping conviction carries a mandatory life in prison penatly.
Texas Tribune
by Lomi Kriel, The Texas TribuneJune 4, 2026
A 23-year-old Guatemalan woman in immigration detention, who has been denied surgery for a painful ovarian cyst for four months, was released earlier this week, her lawyers said.
Andrea Pedro Francisco crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019 with her mother seeking asylum and had been living in Minnesota ever since. In February, days before doctors scheduled her for an urgent surgery to remove an ovarian cyst about the size of a lime, federal agents detained Pedro Francisco and her mother in Minnesota as part of the Trump administration’s controversial Operation Metro Surge.
That initiative, the administration’s most recent high-profile immigration operation, resulted in the detention of about 3,400 immigrants from Minnesota who were sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement centers in Texas.
Pedro Francisco, a leader and musician in her Minnesota evangelical church, was transferred to El Paso’s controversial Camp East Montana, a sprawling tent camp at the city’s U.S. Army’s Fort Bliss. Her arrest came six days before she was scheduled for surgery for her ovarian cyst in Minnesota after years of increasing pain, according to her family and medical records.
Two days after arriving at Camp East Montana, ICE staff called 911, records show, and rushed Pedro Francisco to the hospital for what she said was her debilitating condition. Ever since then, her health has deteriorated, she and her lawyers said. But ICE officials and a federal judge have repeatedly denied her release or outside OB GYN- specialists.
In a statement, Pedro Francisco said that she was in “shock” at what she called her sudden release. She said that she was eating earlier this week when an ICE official told her that she was going to be freed.
“They told me that I was going home,” she recalled, adding that she was “stunned,” and thought it was a “joke.” She said that she is excited to see her family, especially her two younger siblings who she helped raise, and to play musical instruments again.
Her attorney, Ruby L. Powers, called her release “nothing short of a miracle,” adding that now that Pedro Francisco is going home, “she will finally obtain the care she needs and deserves.”
But, Powers added, “we know that there are many others suffering in detention, away from family and being neglected medical treatment. Today, this outcome renews faith in humanity and in what is possible.”
Pedro Francisco’s other attorney, Asra Syed, said that her release “took so many people – her lawyers, her legislators, her friends, her family, organizers – working together.”
Nine experts who reviewed more than 200 pages of her medical records, obtained by The Texas Tribune with Pedro Francisco’s consent, agreed that she urgently requires surgery and not doing so could result in her inability to have children. At worst, some experts argued that it could even result in her death if her cyst is cancerous. The experts said that her treatment in ICE detention amounts to potential medical malpractice because it fails to provide the industry’s standard of care and contradicts what external doctors recommend.
Dr. William Weber, who practices emergency medicine in Minnesota and also reviewed Pedro Francisco’s records, said on Thursday that he is grateful Pedro Francisco could finally get the care she needs now that she is freed.
“Unfortunately, there are many more in ICE detention with unmet medical needs and we need systemic changes,” said Weber, who helps lead the Medical Justice Alliance, a nonprofit focused on care in detention facilities.
Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to questions.
Previously, Leticia Zamarripa, a spokesperson for ICE, said in a statement that medical staff determined Pedro Francisco’s condition “does not make her a candidate for surgical intervention.”
“This is the best healthcare that many individuals have received in their lives,” Zamarripa argued.
An unnamed Department of Homeland Security spokesperson added in an email that Pedro Francisco had seen onsite medical staff while in ICE detention and been evaluated at a local behavioral health center, in addition to the ER visit. The official declined to answer detailed questions.
As Trump has ramped up deportation efforts, Pedro Francisco was one of more than 60,000 people in ICE detention as the administration continues to pursue mass ICE warehouses in its push for expanded removals. Like her, the majority were arrested in the interior of the country and have no criminal convictions. At least 18 people have died in ICE custody this year, nearly a third of them in Texas. That record-breaking number is on pace to surpass the nearly three dozen deaths in 2025, which were the most ICE fatalities in more than two decades.
Experts say this is the result of the administration’s push to detain a far greater number of immigrants than some ICE facilities have capacity for while contracting with companies that either have problematic records or little experience in detention management. At the same time, many medical providers which work with ICE have been unpaid since the fall in a bureaucratic change made by the administration as it switched billing methods.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other Texas advocacy groups sued the administration last month about its treatment of immigrants at Camp East Montana, where Pedro Francisco was held for a few months. Before she arrived, the facility had seen at least three detainee deaths, including a homicide involving staff. Compounding the problems there was a nearly monthlong measles outbreak and nearly 50 detention standards violations as reported by ICE’s own inspectors, prompting calls for the camp’s closure from immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers.
The suit last week argued that conditions at the facility are “unconstitutional punishment,” violating detainees’ due process rights, and that the negligent conditions are “longstanding, pervasive, and well documented.”
Help us report on Texas ICE detention
The Texas Tribune is continuing to report on the record deaths in the state’s immigrant detention facilities and the conditions inside. We’re seeking people who can speak about the quality of care at ICE’s two dozen centers in Texas, including El Paso’s Camp East Montana and the Dilley facility for parents and children, as well as anyone who can provide information on the new detention warehouses slated to open in Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley.
We take your confidentiality seriously and will protect your identity.
Among the people we would like to hear from are:
Immigrants and their relatives who have been held at Texas ICE detention centers and who can speak to the quality of care and treatment by staff there in the past decade. .
Family and attorneys of those who died either in Texas ICE custody or shortly after being released or deported, or those who experienced medical harm during or as a result of detention.
Current or former ICE employees and contractors, such as medical staff and safety inspectors, as well as emergency officials and health care workers who have treated ICE detainees.
You can contact us anonymously on Signal, an encrypted, secure app, or on Whatsapp, via phone or through email:
Lomi Kriel (se habla español): 832-729-3421 (Signal, Whatsapp, cell) or lkriel@texastribune.org
Colleen DeGuzman: 956-605-9321 (Signal, Whatsapp, cell) or colleen.deguzman@texastribune.org
Mail us: Lomi Kriel and Colleen DeGuzman, The Texas Tribune, 919 Congress Ave, STE 600, Austin, TX 78701.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
Rishi Oza
UPDATE (June 5, 2026) — Along with declaring financial exigency and cutting positions, EPISD said it will get rid of its substitute teacher pool.
EPISD said 89 teachers will stay on payroll and work as substitutes.
Board members said 40 contracted and 54 teacher positions will be cut.
Trustee Call said he voted against the plans because he wasn’t confident in the financial numbers presented at the meeting.
Meanwhile, Superintendent Brian Lusk said the action was needed to get the district’s finances organized for the next school year.
“Ultimately, we have a job to do,” Lusk said. “We have a job of serving our students, serving them well and ultimately, we have to balance the budget.”
Board President Leah Hanany agreed the decision was necessary, but extremely difficult.
The meeting lasted more than four hours.
UPDATE (10:04 p.m.) — The board also approved to reduce some areas of employment due to financial exigency.
They would cut about 228 positions and lay off 54 teachers.
The deficit would then lie at $4.3 million, according to the district.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
UPDATE (9:36 p.m.) — EPISD’s board approved to declare financial exigency with a 5-1 vote.
Trustee Daniel E. Call voted against the declaration.
Trustees Valerie Ganelon Beals was absent.
Now, the board is discussing whether to cut 228 positions. Forty of them are contracted and 54 of them are teacher positions.
UPDATE (6:38 p.m.) — The board is out of executive session.
UPDATE (5:57 p.m.) — EPISD’s board went into executive session after hearing public comments.
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — The El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees will discuss and vote on cutting more than 400 jobs and declare financial exigency at its meeting Thursday.
A financial exigency declaration means a school district’s financial resources aren’t enough to supports its instructional programs, according to the Texas Education Agency. It’s similar to bankruptcy for educational institutions.
The district faces a $53 million budget deficit. Cutting the jobs will save them $28 million, EPISD said.
Superintendent Brian Lusk put the items on the agenda and will discuss his plan to reduce personnel costs.
If the board votes in favor, it will implement a savings plan that includes the layoffs.
The meeting started at 5 p.m.
ABC-7 will have live coverage of the meeting online through this blog and on air on ABC-7 after the game and at 10.
Gabrielle Lopez
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — The dust-prone desert of the Borderland may be ideal for solar energy, a new study at the University of Texas at El Paso found.
Thursday, UTEP shared findings from a study conducted in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where researchers monitored six solar panels from 2022-2024. Twenty-two dust events happened during the research timeframe, UTEP said.
Results suggested solar panels in Alamogordo lose only 2-3% of their power output when dust gets on them.
UTEP said that’s much lower compared to solar facilities in other deserts around the world. At sites in Iran or China, soiling losses reach 10-80%, according to UTEP.
The Borderland’s wind and rain patterns help solar facility operators clean their panels less frequently, UTEP said.
“What we found is that this location is genuinely favorable for solar energy, not just because of its abundant sunshine but because of how the dust behaves here,” said German Rodriguez Ortiz, the study’s lead author.
Rodriguez Ortiz said gypsum, the mineral blown from White Sands, is less harmful to solar panel performance compared to other dust around the globe.
Gypsum, the mineral blown from White Sands, absorbs less light, meaning its interference with panel performance is limited. With the regions’ weather patterns lowering demand for cleaning panels, operators are saving water, labor and costs, UTEP said.
“Our location in the Chihuahuan Desert is not just a backdrop — it is a living laboratory, and this work shows how deeply understanding your local environment can generate insights with real economic and energy consequences for the region,” Thomas E. Gill, co-author of the study.
UTEP’s study published in a journal, Atmosphere, in April 2026.
Gabrielle Lopez
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — The El Paso County Sheriff’s Department arrested two parents after the father allegedly drove while intoxicated with children in the car.
Tuesday, deputies stopped a car that didn’t use a turn signal and didn’t stay in a single lane, EPCSO said.
Deputies identified the driver as 25-year-old Ricardo Rivera and said he showed signs of intoxication, such as the smell of an alcoholic beverage from his breath, documents said.
Two children, aged 2 and 3, were in the back of the car, EPCSO said. Sitting with the children was a “friend of his baby mama,” documents said.
According to documents obtained by ABC-7, Rivera admitted to having a few drinks, including two beers while visiting his friend.
They arrested Rivera for driving while intoxicated after a field sobriety test. Rivera’s blood alcohol concentration registered as 0.204, EPCSO said. That’s nearly three times the legal limit of 0.08.
Later, Rivera said he drank Miller High Life “caguamas,” which are 32-ounce beers, documents said. He also said he stopped at a Circle K while dropping off the children’s mother at home and bought more alcoholic drinks.
According to documents, he admitted to drinking and driving.
A deputy searched Rivera’s car and found two Miller High Life beers in the front and six in the back that were “cold to the touch,” according to documents. Some of the drinks were empty or had less of its original amount.
After investigating Rivera, deputies said the children’s mother, 29-year-old Cynthia Garcia, allegedly put the children in danger.
Deputies got two warrants for abandoning or endangering a child for Garcie, and issued them with no bond.
Both parents booked into the Downtown detention facility.
Rivera was charged with DWI with a child and a $2,000 bond, EPCSO said.
EPCSO noted the arrest marks Garcia’s second charge for abandoning or endangering a child within the last three months. According to another arrest document, she left her daughter alone in their apartment while she drank at a different apartment.
In March, a deputy went to an apartment in Canutillo for a welfare check, documents said. People reported hearing Rivera’s daughter crying and yelling for her mother for more than an hour.
The deputy couldn’t find anyone but later found the girl crying behind a screen door of Rivera’s apartment.
Documents said the girl walked to the deputy with her arms extended and seemed “relieved to have [the deputy] present, however appeared scared and was pointing towards the apartment door.”
The deputy carried the girl while searching the area. Garcia appeared from two properties away, documents said, holding a 32-ounce Miller High Life beer.
Garcia told the deputy she lived at the apartment where the deputy found her daughter. Documents said the girl “had been fussy throughout the day” and fell asleep. Garcia said she left her daughter sleeping in the apartment 30 minutes before meeting the deputy.
Garcia said she went to her sister’s apartment with her son and stayed to drink beer and eat wings, according to documents. She was on her way to check on her daughter when she saw deputies at her apartment, she said.
Documents said the girl was left alone for 30 minutes without adult supervision in an “unkept and unsecured apartment.” Additionally, the girl was left with hazards like fecal stains, soiled food, trash, sharp tools and cleaning chemicals.
This story has been updated with additional details.
