Berenice Garcia, Author at The Texas Tribune

About

Corrections and Clarifications

Our reporting on all platforms will be truthful, transparent and respectful; our facts will be accurate, complete and fairly presented. When we make a mistake — and from time to time, we will — we will work quickly to fully address the error, correcting it within the story, detailing the error on the story page and adding it to this running list of Tribune corrections. If you find an error, email corrections@texastribune.org.

Berenice Garcia

Berenice Garcia is a regional reporter covering the Rio Grande Valley. She works at the Tribune as a corps members with Report for America. She previously covered local government, crime, healthcare and general assignments for The Monitor in McAllen where she was born. Though she's spent the majority of her life in the Valley, she traveled east to attend New York University where she studied journalism and politics. While there, she interned at the New York Daily News, the Daily Beast and NBC News. When she’s not working, she enjoys fighting for her life at the gym. Berenice is based in McAllen.

A crowd of vehicles lay stranded on frontage road in front the McAllen Convention Center during a downpour on Thursday in McAllen.

Environment

3 dead, more than 200 rescued in South Texas after severe storms cause flooding

By Valerie Gonzalez, Associated Press and Berenice Garcia The Texas TribuneMarch 28, 2025

Homes were inundated with water and cars were abandoned across the Rio Grande Valley region.

Migrants walk from a Department of Homeland Security tent facility in front of the McAllen bus station to Catholic Charities RGV Humanitarian Respite Center on April 22, 2021.

Politics

FEMA wants the names and addresses of migrants helped by Texas nonprofits and local governments that got federal grant money

By Uriel J. García, Alejandro Serrano and Berenice GarciaMarch 13, 2025March 13, 2025

A letter sent this week claims the grant recipients, including many Texas cities and counties, may have illegally “induced” undocumented immigrants to enter the country.

Water levels at the Falcon Dam in Starr County were dangerously low in 2022 amid a drought. On Monday, a panel of Texas senators approved a resolution asking the U.S. State Department to force Mexico to send the state water its owed.

Texas Legislature 2025

Texas Senate panel sends message to Trump: Get our water from Mexico

By Berenice GarciaMarch 10, 2025

Farmers and elected officials told a Senate committee Monday that the lack of water is becoming dire, with little relief in sight.

Evangelina Yzaguirre in her home in Alton on March 1. Yzaguirre a cancer patient at DHR Health, a local hospital system, receives food aid from the hospital pantry program.

Texas Legislature 2025

Why a Rio Grande Valley hospital is helping to feed its patients

By Berenice GarciaMarch 6, 2025

As the Edinburg facility and others seek to assist people experiencing food insecurity, state lawmakers have more than a dozen bills that could tackle Texas’ food deserts.

City lights in Mexico are seen in the background as migrants are registered by border patrol agents after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States near Starr County in 2022.

Operation Lone Star

Why two border counties are joining Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star after migration slows

By Berenice GarciaFeb. 25, 2025

The counties hope to access state money to help pay for some criminal justice work, such as prosecuting drug cases and overtime.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge. The owners of a South Texas bakery raided by immigration agents were accused of harboring undocumented workers in an apartment next to the Los Fresnos business.

Criminal Justice

South Texas bakery owners housed undocumented workers next to business before ICE raid, feds allege in hearing

By Berenice GarciaFeb. 21, 2025

Before federal agents arrested them, the couple who runs the bakery in Los Fresnos said they “knew this would happen one day,” a federal agent testified at court hearing.

Abby's Bakery in the Rio Grande Valley town of Los Fresnos was raided by federal immigration agents, who detained eight employees and later charged the owners with harboring undocumented immigrants.

Criminal Justice

ICE arrests South Texas bakery owners accused of hiring undocumented workers

By Berenice GarciaFeb. 20, 2025

Federal immigration agents raided the Los Fresnos bakery and detained eight workers before filing charges against the two owners.

Jose Alfredo Ledezma, 35, of Honduras, holds a folder next to his wife and daughter outside of Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen on Aug. 2, 2021. The shelter has seen a dramatic drop in migrants since last summer.

Immigration

Texas migrant shelters are nearly empty after Trump’s actions effectively shut the border

By Berenice GarciaFeb. 14, 2025

The shelters began seeing fewer people dropped off by customs and border agents following former President Joe Biden’s executive order limiting some asylum claims.