The Biden administration’s latest plan to address opioid overdose deaths includes $30 million for harm-reduction measures, but many conservative states don’t allow them. During the 2021 legislative session, Texas lawmakers scuttled a bill that would have rescinded criminal penalties for possessing drug paraphernalia, such as clean syringes and fentanyl test strips.
Neena Satija
Neena Satija worked at the Tribune from 2013 to 2019. She was an investigative reporter and radio producer for the Tribune and Reveal, a public radio program from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Previously, she was the environment reporter at the Tribune. A native of the Washington, D.C. area, she graduated from Yale University in 2011, and then worked for the New Haven Independent, the Connecticut Mirror, and WNPR/Connecticut Public Radio. She has also been a regular contributor to National Public Radio. As an East Coast transplant she is particularly thrilled with Austin tacos and warm weather.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Under Texas’ strict abortion law, McAllen clinic sees patients seeking medication across the border
The law went into effect in September, a week before Mexico’s Supreme Court dissolved a Coahuila state law that made abortion a crime. Now some Texans further along in their pregnancies are going there for abortion-inducing drugs.
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Criminal Justice
How judicial conflicts of interest are denying poor Texans their right to an effective lawyer
For decades, Texans who can’t afford a lawyer have gotten caught in a criminal justice system that’s crippled by inadequate funding and overloaded attorneys. A growing body of caseload data — and a recent lawsuit — point to an even more fundamental hazard: the unchecked power of Texas judges.
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Blocked Out
Section 8 vouchers are supposed to help the poor reach better neighborhoods. Texas law gets in the way.
Under Texas law, landlords cannot be punished for discriminating against families with federal housing vouchers. The impact is clear in Houston, where one in four families who receive housing assistance never gets to use it.
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Criminal Justice
Harris County juvenile judges and private attorneys accused of cronyism: “Everybody wins but the kids”
A handful of private lawyers represent an enormous number of poor kids in Harris County’s juvenile justice and child welfare systems. Meanwhile, the county’s public defenders say they aren’t getting enough work.
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Demographics
As suicide rates rise, Hispanics show relative immunity
Support from family and community appear to shield Latinos from rising suicide rates, researchers say.
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Families Divided
Why did the Trump administration separate asylum-seekers from their kids?
The federal government claims that it separated thousands of migrant kids from their parents for one reason: The parents broke the law by entering the U.S. illegally. But the account of a Guatemalan mother named Sandy, told in this week’s episode of Reveal in partnership with the Texas Tribune, tells a different story.
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Families Divided
Separated migrant family of six faced one hurdle after another after immigration crackdown
A young Guatemalan slept on a bridge for at least three days and nights while attempting to seek asylum. His wife and children had been separated after crossing that bridge just weeks earlier. This is the story of a family that faced seemingly every possible hurdle under Trump’s immigration crackdown.
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Families Divided
Trump officials want to give migrant families two options: Stay detained together or agree to separation
U.S. Department of Justice lawyers are seeking permission from a federal judge to offer separated immigrant families two options: remain together in family detention centers, or release kids while parents stay detained.
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Families Divided
A mother from Guatemala is supposed to see her 6-month-old Tuesday. Will it happen?
The clock is ticking for Sandy, a mother in immigration detention who was separated from her four kids — including her then 5-month-old son — earlier this summer. A federal judge has ordered that children under 5 be reunited with their parents by Tuesday. But it’s hard to know if that will actually happen.