Texas has the dubious distinction of being home to one of the busiest human trafficking routes in the country: the stretch of Interstate Highway 10 that runs from El Paso to Houston.

The addition of five Hispanic Republicans to the Texas House means the Mexican American Legislative Caucus will now include at least a few dissenting voices on issues like immigration. "It does Latinos a huge disservice to say we all think alike," says state Rep.-elect Larry Gonzales, R-Round Rock.

Rick Perry won his third full term as governor of Texas on Tuesday, defeating former Houston Mayor Bill White by a convincing double-digit margin and positioning himself for a role on the national stage. And he led a Republican army that swept all statewide offices for the fourth election in a row, took out three Democratic U.S. congressmen and was on its way to a nearly two-thirds majority in the Texas House — a mark the GOP hasn't seen since the days following the Civil War.

Each year, billions of dollars are smuggled into Mexico through Texas ports by drug cartels for the purpose of bribing government officials, hiring assassins and purchasing arms. For now, at least, there's not much that the U.S. or Mexican governments can do about it.

The drama of the gridiron has found its way into a federal courtroom in a standoff between the Texas Association of Sports Officials and the University Interscholastic League. With the threat of a lockout of referees and their ilk, the result could be the hiring of scabs to replace them — or even the halting of games — just weeks before one of the year's most eagerly anticipated moments in Texas: the start of high school football playoffs.

The trial-lawyer-as-epithet strategy, a perennial favorite of Texans Republicans, is playing big in the effort to oust longtime Democratic House member Jim Dunnam, D-Waco.

The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, played a little soccer this week in Ciudad Juárez, but his real game was creating hope in a place where none exists.

“The scourge of drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, robbery and violence has dismantled our economy, has eroded our tranquility and has stained our social structures with blood,” said Ciudad Juárez's new mayor, Héctor “Teto” Murguía, at his inauguration Sunday. “This economic and social disaster deserves a desperate cry for help and solidarity.”

A year after Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it would reform immigration detention, advocacy groups say the agency has fallen short on a few key counts: addressing alleged human rights violations and expanding alternatives to incarceration.

Former FBI agent Raul Salinas hopes to win a second term as mayor of this border city, whose reputation has suffered the ill effects of cartel violence just across the Rio Grande. He says he's "friendly" and "accessible." His four challengers portray him as more concerned with photo ops than solving image problems that hamper economic development.

"It is impossible to carry out our role in these conditions," read the editorial this week in El Diario de Juárez. "Tell us, therefore, what is expected of us as a medium." The paper was directly addressing Mexican drug traffickers who assassinated its young photographer Luis Carlos Santiago in broad daylight, but the whole world took notice — and asked if the Mexican media was finally waving the white flag before the cartels and gangs now warring for control of the bloodied country. Diario editor Pedro Torres explains that the intent was simply "to call attention to what is going on."

The author of Drug Lord on rumors of Mexican political corruption, how the drug war is like Prohibition, why drug traffickers aren't like Muslim extremists, whether the U.S. media really understands Mexico and why Hezbollah has set up shop across the border.

Despite the violence-fueled cancellation of bicentennial festivities in other major border towns, Nuevo Laredo plans to forge ahead with its celebration of Mexican Independence Day.