The El Paso Brut Sun Bowl has sold out more quickly than ever in its 76-year history, officials said today. The sellout comes less than a week after the Oklahoma City daily The Oklahoman, ran a story about how the raging violence in Juarez was keeping many Sooner fans from buying tickets

U.S. Border Patrol agents launched Operation Detour to shock kids away from Mexican drug cartel recruiters. Now they're expanding the program across the entire southwest border.

El Paso is in the national news today, and — for the first time in recent memory — it has nothing to do with its proximity to drug war-torn Juarez. Forbes actually has some good news about the border city: Incomes for college graduates in El Paso are rising faster than any other major metropolitan area of the nation.

Border communities struggle to keep younger, educated residents when larger cities dangle economic and quality-of-life opportunities. They're afflicted with the reputation of being black holes of talent — where escape is necessary in order to prosper.

The inflamed immigration rhetoric of the past couple of years has waned, but a report the National Conference of State Legislatures released today shows that state lawmakers still have passion for the issue.

The U.S. Border Patrol says its illegal immigration repatriation program is working to break the crossing cycle in Arizona, but officials in Texas and Mexico worry the program creates more problems than it solves.

The day after DPS warns parents that Mexican cartels are trying to recruit their kids to sell drugs, the agency issues a press release that says DPS efforts are pushing back drugs and preventing them from getting here.

That warning comes as law enforcement officials report an increase in the number of youth from Mexico and the United States becoming involved in human and drug trafficking.

The physically disabled and suicidal detainee was put in an isolated cell without her crutches. She was strip-searched and denied feminine products. For days, she slid around on the floor, covering herself and the cell in menstrual blood. When inspectors came out to investigate, they found a facility poorly equipped to provide mental health treatment to its 1,500 detainees.

KBH resigns herself to staying in the Senate, Grissom investigates the broken border, Ramshaw outs IT contractors who make gigabucks from state agencies, Hu gives Hutchison and Perry the Stump Interrupted treatment, the new head of the Foresenic Science Commission faces his critics, Stiles posts a searchable database of fines levied by the state ethics commission, and Hamilton discovers the consequences of party switching (none): The best of the best from November 9 to 13, 2009.

In some places, the governor's border security efforts have led to a reduction in crime — in rural counties, for instance, where there aren't many people and there wasn't much crime to begin with. But in large urban counties like El Paso and Webb, it's a different story.

The Texas Public Information Act allows agencies to redact information for security and privacy reasons. The Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition decided redact just about everything they possibly could on the invoices they sent me.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Sharp and state Reps. Ryan Guillen and Veronica Gonzales fired off a letter today to the two Republican Texas senators asking them to find money to boost health care funding for Rio Grande Valley veterans.

The mildly pleasant woman who answered the phone explained to me that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Freedom of Information Act office does not accept requests electronically.

Texas’ chain of inland checkpoints has created a border within a border, separating abused and sometimes undocumented children in counties adjacent to Mexico from services north of the invisible line.

Drugs are abundant in border communities. Poverty is rampant. Substance abuse treatment is scarce. What's a 16 year old to do?

Texans say immigration tops their list of state concerns. Nearly half of them say illegal immigrants should be deported, as against 41 percent who think the immigrants should be allowed to keep their jobs, assimilate, and eventually be allowed to apply for legal status.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina launched the first in what she says will be a series of Spanish-language commercials that will air on South Texas cable — on CNN, Fox News, and Univision.