HOUSTON — The U.S. Justice Department has withdrawn from an agreement with the city of Houston to curb illegal dumping in Black and Latino neighborhoods, part of the Trump administration’s broad dismantling of environmental justice initiatives.

Federal authorities quietly ended the monitoring this year as they pulled the plug on a similar settlement over wastewater problems in rural Alabama, according to three former law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the move wasn't made public.

Without federal monitoring, advocates in Houston said city officials have become less responsive to residents afflicted by persistent dumping in the historically Black neighborhood of Trinity/Houston Gardens.

“We have nothing to fight with anymore," resident Huey German-Wi

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