Texas Republican convention-goers not only support Arizona-style immigration laws — some are proposing "laser beams" and "electric wire" to keep more immigrants from crossing the border illegally.

Citing budget cuts and a decline is revenue, the USCIS is proposing fee increases for more than two dozen immigration-related documents.

Ramsey on what the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll says about the governor's race, education, immigration, and other issues; Grissom on a far West Texas county divided over Arizona's immigration law; Ramshaw talks health care reform and obesity in Texas with a legendary Dallas doctor; M. Smith on the Collin County community that's about to break ground on a $60 million high school football stadium; Aguilar on the backlog of cases in the federal immigration detention system; Philpott of the Green Party's plans to get back on the ballot; Hu on the latest in the Division of Workers' Comp contretemps; Mulvaney on the punishing process of getting compensated for time spent in jail when you didn't commit a crime; Hamilton on the fight over higher ed formula funding; and my sit-down with state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin: The best of our best from May 24-28, 2010.

A commissioner's court resolution supporting Arizona's controversial immigration law has split rural Hudspeth County in far West Texas, whose 3,000 residents are largely Hispanic. Commissioner Jim Ed Miller, who introduced the resolution, says he simply wants the federal government to do its job and stop illegals from crossing the border. "Now what the hell is wrong with upholding the law?" he asks. But commissioner Wayne West, who opposed it, describes the prospect of law enforcement asking people to prove their citizenship as “nothing but pure harassment.” 

Texans narrowly oppose a "pathway to citizenship" for illegal immigrants, strongly favor an end to in-state tuition for non-citizens at state colleges and universities, would support a constitutional "English-only" amendment and overwhelmingly say that businesses should verify the immigration status of their workers, according to the new UT/Texas Tribune poll.

If the federal law was enforced, there would be no need for an Arizona law or any other law in a state that is proposing similar legislation.

The long-awaited debate over the Arizona immigration law between state Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, and state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio — promised but never facilitated by CNN — took place today on Dallas radio station KRLD.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund has filed a lawsuit challenging Arizona’s controversial new immigration law.

At tonight's Rose Garden celebration of Cinco de Mayo, Barack Obama said he intended to begin work on "comprehensive immigration reform" this year, even though many administration observers predicted the issue was too controversial to tackle following the bloody battle over health care reform legislation.

State Rep. Debbie Riddle defends the comments she made about minorities and immigration reform.

Arch-conservative state Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, has two points he’d like to clarify.

Rick Perry and Janet Napolitano: just a couple of old border governors talkin' homeland security.

To the sound of drums and the sight of American flags, more than 25,000 people marched on Dallas City Hall in the latest episode in Texas' endless immigration saga. 

Stiles and Thevenot's searchable database of more than 5,800 public schools, Thevenot on why smaller high schools are better, Garcia-Ditta on the possible unification of Big Bend National Park with Mexico, Grissom on what's likely to happen on immigration reform this year (nothing), Hamilton on how Admm Bobby Ray Inman is managing a crisis, Hu on the health care reform straw man, Ramsey on the no-shoo-in-for-the-experienced-guy special election in Senate District 22, Philpott on the likely post-Arizona immigration brawls, Ramshaw on the emergence of concierge care as a response to health care reform, Aguilar on how Texas will soon become Cuba's top U.S. trading partner, Stiles and Babalola's searchable database of more 160,000 inmates in Texas prisons, M. Smith on the depressing fact that every single U.S. Attorney position in Texas is now vacant, and my on-camera sit-down with Texas Transportation Commission chair Deirdre Delisi. The best of our best from April 26 to 30, 2010.

In the wake of Arizona's immigration legislation, the City of Austin will formally consider limiting travel and business with the state.

Gov. Rick Perry does not think Texas should adopt a law like the one recently passed in Arizona.

ABC News reports that state Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Houston, will introduce a bill in the Texas Legislature similar to the controversial immigration measure passed into law in Arizona.

E. Smith interviews Gov. Rick Perry for the Trib and Newsweek, Philpott dissects the state's budget mess in a weeklong series, Hamilton looks at whether Bill White is or was a trial lawyer, M. Smith finds experts all over the state anxiously watching a court case over who owns the water under our feet, Aguilar reports on the battle between Fort Stockton and Clayton Williams Jr. over water in West Texas, Ramshaw finds a population too disabled to get on by itself but not disabled enough to get state help and Miller spends a day with a young man and his mother coping with that situation, Ramsey peeks in on software that lets the government know whether its e-mail messages are getting read and who's reading what, a highway commissioner reveals just how big a hole Texas has in its road budget, Grissom does the math on the state's border cameras and learns they cost Texans about $153,800 per arrest, and E. Smith interviews Karen Hughes on the difference between corporate and political P.R. — and whether there's such a thing as "Obama Derangement Syndrome." The best of our best from April 19 to April 23, 2010.