In the closing weeks of the 2025 legislative session, over 100 Texas IAF leaders mobilized once again to stop a corporate tax giveaway that would have slashed wages and cost Texas schools hundreds of millions in lost revenue.

House Bill 105, filed quietly in the final days for bill filing, would have gutted key wage and job creation standards in the JETI (Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation) program. JETI replaced the failed Chapter 313 program in 2023, effectively cutting it in half.

If passed, HB 105 would have created a new class of “Priority Projects” for companies investing $750 million or more, allowing them to:

• Avoid proving their tax breaks were a “compelling factor” in choosing Texas,
• Sidestep any requirement to create new jobs,
• Lower wage standards from 110% of the average industry wage for that type of manufacturing facility to 110% of the average county manufacturing wage, which includes many low wage manufacturing jobs, often tens of thousands of dollars less.

In short, it would have allowed some of the largest companies in the world to drive down the wages in their industry by locating new plants in Texas counties with low average manufacturing wages.

Written by leaders and organizers from The Metropolitan Organization (TMO), EPISO/Border Interfaith, COPS/Metro, and Central Texas Interfaith

Last year, Pope Francis met with a group of community organizers and leaders in his private residence. It was the third time he’d met with us, members of the Texas IAF and colleagues from the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation. This time, he counseled us not to lose the ability to laugh.

It is with great sadness that we learned the news this Easter Monday morning about the death of Pope Francis.

Over the past three years, we, as representatives of the Industrial Areas Foundation, were privileged to meet him three times in his Santa Marta residence at the Vatican, each an encounter of 90 minutes or more. 

It felt extraordinary that the successor to St. Peter would carve out such time to meet with a group of community organizers and leaders in the midst of a schedule that included preparing for grueling international travel, receiving visits from foreign leaders, and hosting the global synods. Not to mention issuing numerous apostolic letters and encyclicals.  

Long considered a "champion for God's people and justice" by his peers, Pastor John D. Ogletree received some well-deserved coverage by South Texas College of Law in Houston.  As the founding pastor of First Metropolitan Church, his leadership with TMO, Texas IAF and the regional network of the West/Southwest IAF has been catalytic.

[Photo Credit: South Texas College of Law - Houston]

Community Icon, STCL Houston Alumnus Forges Pathway to Justice and Redemption, South Texas College of Law - Houston [pdf]

[Excerpt]

"Catholic social teaching isn't ideological," [Bob] Fleming said. "It says, 'Go out to the people, talk with them, understand them, let them tell you what's going on.' "

....[Sr. Pearl] Ceasar shares Fleming's sentiment about the compatibility of Texas IAF's work and Catholic social teaching. In the 1960s, she studied the documents of the Second Vatican Council, which she said greatly impacted her outlook on the responsibilities of individual Catholics and the Catholic Church.

"Vatican II didn't address the doctrines of the church; it addressed the relationships in the church and who we are to be as Catholics," Ceasar said. "Meaning that we are to be engaged with people, we are to be engaged in the community."

For 50 years, Texas IAF Organizing Group Has Drawn on Catholic Roots, National Catholic Reporter [pdf]

Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller and Dr. Emilce Cuda take a song break during a COPS/Metro dinner last week.

On Feb. 19 and Feb. 20, Texas IAF leaders welcomed the Vatican's Emilce Cuda, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, for a tour of San Antonio's West Side, followed by a two-day conversation about faith, organizing, and the role of the Catholic Church in confronting the crises facing its communities.

Cuda began the visit by touring neighborhoods transformed by the parishes and congregations of COPS/Metro over the last 50 years. On the agenda were the Alazan Creek drainage project, parks, dozens of miles of sidewalks and streets, housing developments for senior citizens, the Texas Diabetes Center, and Project QUEST.   Leaders told stories that concretely illustrated how ordinary people accomplished extraordinary things.

Said Cuda, “[Francis] said the way to arrive to a better life is better politics, and the better politics to him is a social dialogue, and my work is how to help to his agenda.”

Vatican Official Says Pope Francis Will Cause 'New Social Dialogue' in Argentina, Crux

Read the full article in Crux Magazine here.

On Friday February 16th, TMO leaders gathered a press conference to call on Governor Greg Abbott to overturn the TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) permit that would allow construction of a concrete crushing facility next to the LBJ Hospital. Concrete crushers can have dire consequences for the communities that surround them including particle and noise pollution, damaged roads, and cracked windshields. Houston Public Media warns that the risks of fine particle exposure can include "elevated levels of heart disease, stroke, asthma, cancer and other respiratory issues."

To sign the petition and voice your support, click here.

Press Conference [video]

Community Leaders Urge Greg Abbott to Reverse Permit for Concrete Crushing Plant Near LBJ Hospital, Houston Public Media [pdf]

Community Organizers Ask Governor to Pump the Breaks on Concrete-Crushing Facility, Houston Press [pdf]

Houston Religious Leaders Protest Concrete Crushing Plant near Hospital, Chron.com [pdf]

Religious Leaders Join Opposition Against Proposed Concrete Plant by LBJ Hospital, Houston Chronicle [pdf]

[Excerpt]

“Tax breaks should be decoupled from school funding and from school board decision making, period,” said Rev. Miles Brandon, a [Central Texas] Interfaith leader and pastor of St. Julian of Norwich Episcopal Church...

Brandon said the new program is better than what existed previously because it no longer includes direct payments to schools, which he described as a “perverse incentive” for districts to approve deals despite the cost to the state's overall education system. He also said the decrease in the total size of each tax abatement is an improvement over Chapter 313, as is the requirement that each deal must pass the governor's office.

But he said Austin Interfaith will continue to encourage school board members to vote in opposition to any request by a company to participate in the new program...“As we see how this law unfolds, I think we will continue to oppose" applications, Brandon said."

[Photo Credit: Arnold Wells, Austin Business Journal]

Texas' New Incentives Tool is Ready, Austin Business Journal [link]

[Photo Credit: Steve Taylor, Rio Grande Guardian]

[Excerpt]

"Our immigration system is outdated, and Congress has been unable to update it in decades. As a result, Governor Abbott and his enablers in the Texas Legislature are coming up with ever more questionable ways to spend billions of Texas taxes to militarize border enforcement and criminalize migrants who are fleeing political, religious and criminal violence and persecution in countries across the world. Frustration over our broken immigration system is allowing the Governor and Texas Legislature to adopt inappropriate and self-defeating strategies like SB 4 and SB 3.

SB 4 will make it a state crime for anyone to cross the Texas-Mexico border between ports of entry. Under the current immigration law, only 1450 people each day can legally cross the US-Mexico border at ports of entry and seek asylum. Many thousands more, fearing the violence and cartels on the Mexico side of the border, choose to cross between ports of entry and immediately turn themselves into border patrol officers and seek asylum. If state and local officers interact before they turn themselves into border patrol, they are liable under SB 4."

Valley Interfaith: We decry Gov. Abbott’s Signing of New Anti-Immigrant State Laws, Rio Grande Guardian [pdf]

[Photo Credit: Fox SA]

[Excerpt]

"The American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a lawsuit in Austin federal court against Governor Greg Abbott over Senate Bill 4.

It’s considered the strictest state immigration enforcement law ever passed. Some local leaders say this new law just creates fear throughout the community.

"We just think it’s the wrong approach a terrible thing to do and not the business of the state government," says Sonia Rodriguez, leader of Cops / Metro...