No, the rules haven't changed. But when you are fired, if the employer can show they had a valid misconduct reason to terminate you, with progressive disciplines and warnings, so that you KNEW your job was in jeopardy, then they could fire you and you would not be approved for unemployment, which as I said before, they do not want you to get, because it will cost them money.
But as I also said, performance issues are tricky to fire someone with and get them denied. As long as you were doing your best, as you clearly and repeatedly state, and you did not know that your performance was inadequate, you didn't know that your job was in jeopardy until this warning, as you say, then your chances are pretty good.
It's fairly common for employers to try to fire someone this way. It isn't a bad thing to have had good performance evaluations up to this point. Especially when you have worked for an employer for any significant amount of time, and they were bragging on your work, then you suddenly find yourself with "not meeting performance standards" when you insist that you were still doing your best, still trying to meet every expectation, they're not likely going to see that as misconduct.
Say you got on drugs, were having serious personal issues, and decided to start sleeping under your desk instead of doing the job,(I once saw a case where the employer had this on video!) or you got mad at the bosses and deliberately started messing up the work or processes, that's performance misconduct.
They have to show that you were doing the job, were capable of doing the job, and that you actually by your own choice decided to not do the job or not do it as well. And of course, you are saying, under oath, repeatedly that you were always doing your job to the best of your abilities. You may mention that you feel you were targeted. The unemployment workers have seen many things of this sort before. They're going to be neutral if possible, but they understand that every financial advantage would be to the employer to keep you from receiving benefits, and they're going to go with the more believable testimony.
But hang on, let them actually terminate you if they will. Don't quit, because then your chances of showing that you quit the job for a valid work related reason is much smaller. They know that, thus they will try to encourage resignations as opposed to termination.
Most people are terribly sadly unaware of how few rights an employee actually has, especially in very employer-friendly states like Texas, until the rug actually gets pulled out from under them personally. Yes, I'm afraid they certainly can do this to you, and unemployment insurance, if you are approved, is your only recourse.
