Illegal Immigrants and Sealed Documents

If I have younger children to take care of, it may well be several years before I'm even willing to leave to file — depending upon how dangerous and/or deprived my home area may be. The vision of "anchor babies" creating a tidal wave of family immigration is really exaggerated.

Comment by MH

Leave: It's wrong for these illegal aliens to be here. They can't legally get a job anywhere in America. They are wasting their time going to school. Nice how they talk about cheating the system using fake IDs — not the kind of nationals I want on a path to citizenship. Erika is not a student, she's a criminal. Things are changing and DREAMers should start accepting that they are going to have to leave. Forget the education and start packing.

Comment by Lynx

Sealing Documents

Not Our Fault: From Chris Vogel's story ["A New Retreat"] of June 26, readers might infer that a sealed document was available via the Harris County District Clerk's Web site through some fault of the office.

This is what happened: After a settlement was reached in the civil suit, the defendant's attorney filed two motions and inadvertently attached the settlement agreement to both of them. The attorney then filed a motion to seal the agreement attached to just one of the motions. Even when that was granted, the settlement agreement attached to the other motion remained public.

Then, on June 19, the attorney filed an emergency motion to seal the second motion. As soon as that was granted, access to the settlement agreement was restricted properly.

"We take our duties very seriously and are particularly careful when it comes to sealing documents," District Clerk Theresa Chang said. "We have steps in our processes to ensure documents are sealed when that is ordered."

Fred King
Communications Coordinator
Harris County District Clerk
Theresa Chang

High Culture
Press writer is nationally recognized for his arts feature

Troy Schulze, a frequent contributor to the Houston Press, has received second-place honors in a national journalism contest sponsored by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.

Schulze was cited for his Press story "Black Box Office," about African-­American urban theater in the Arts Feature category of the AltWeekly Awards.