DAY 30 of our month-long series on the effects of new state laws and budget cuts: During a legislative session where hardly any services were spared the budget ax, funding for border security actually increased.

The state senator from McAllen sat down with the Tribune to talk border security, how Democrats move forward after voter ID and what he thinks the upper chamber will look like in 2013.

It's not a sales pitch heard too often in the Rio Grande Valley, but farmers and ranchers here have a new, tax-deductible option for improving their businesses — and the company offering it promises to take a bullet for its client.

An Austin judge ruled this week that the Texas Department of Public Safety overstepped its authority when it enacted tougher requirements for immigrants trying to obtain driver's licenses, giving immigrants' rights groups and some business leaders a glimmer of hope.

State officials said Friday they can’t reveal how much money taxpayers are spending to protect Gov. Rick Perry — and that records of security costs compiled before 2008 have been “purged.”

The idea was to rein in the amount of unauthorized immigrants with IDs or driver's licenses. But steps lawmakers took in that direction have some concerned they cast too wide a net.

Just as Gov. Rick Perry steps out on the national stage, lawmakers back home are moving to limit public access to detailed records showing how much it’s costing to protect him during his travels.

A border lawmaker has written Gov. Rick Perry in the hopes of adding another item to the agenda for the current special session.

The Texas Department of Public Safety today announced the start of a program to help poor drivers pay off expensive surcharges and get their driver's licenses back.

Legislation that would grant the state authority to erect southbound checkpoints near the Texas-Mexico border was successfully revived today after lawmakers attached it as an amendment to a bill concerning record sharing by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.

Some of the thousands of untested rape kits lining evidence storage room shelves statewide would finally get testing under a bill the Texas Senate approved today.

You wouldn't know it by the miniscule amount of debate Thursday, but the Senate approved what some lawmakers called the most significant piece of homeland security legislation filed this session, a measure civil liberty groups worry is a major encroachment on civil rights.

Lawmakers at the Capitol today debated eliminating a surcharge on traffic tickets that has been riddled with problems almost since its inception.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is recommending — again — that Texans avoid traveling to Mexico for vacation. It's the second warning in less than five weeks.

More than two years after an arsonist torched the Governor's Mansion, the Department of Public Safety still hasn't made any arrests, but investigators say they have identified persons of interest in the case.

In case you were planning any trips to violence-ridden Mexico, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety says don't — again.

Criminal justice in Texas got a fourfold performance review from the Legislative Budget Board today. From incarceration projections to the cost per bed for prisoners, the board broke down the state's public safety performance in cold, hard numbers. 

Some of the 1.2 million Texas drivers whose licenses have been suspended because they failed to pay expensive traffic ticket surcharges can catch a big break right now from the Department of Public Safety.