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The latest border news from The Texas Tribune.

  • "We Need Your Help Here"

    By Julián Aguilar

    A government report finds the U.S. has been too slow to aid Mexico and other crime-ridden countries at a time when drug-related violence is escalating. Efforts to combat alien smuggling have also fallen short. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jason Ganser

  • Crossing While Contagious

    By Forrest Burnson

    The 1,200-mile border it shares with Mexico makes Texas one the most vulnerable states when it comes to imported infectious diseases. In a majority of cases, Customs and Border Protection officers are unable to detect these public health threats at ports of entry, according to a new Centers for Disease Control study. Full Story 

    Scene from the Laredo port of entry
    Credit: Marjorie Cotera

  • TribBlog: Obama the Remover

    By Julián Aguilar

    A report released today from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University shows that during the first nine months of 2010, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 279,035 non-citizens, compared to 254,763 for the same time period during the final year of the Bush administration. Full Story 

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  • Checkpoint Blues

    By Alexa Garcia-Ditta

    As more U.S. Border Patrol agents descend on the Texas-Mexico border, residents of some of the most remote West Texas towns say they feel harassed and disrespected by the new arrivals watching over their communities. Full Story 

    Border Patrol Checkpoint on HWY 118, south of Alpine, Tex.
    Credit: Spencer Selvidge for The Texas Tribune

  • Barack the Enforcer

    By Julián Aguilar

    Despite grousing from congressmen and state officials in Arizona and Texas — notably Gov. Rick Perry — that the Obama administration has abdicated its role in the protecting the nation's borders from illegal immigration, the Department of Homeland Security’s largest investigative units this year each recorded their highest monthly number of cases referred for prosecution since the Bush administration, according to a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman/Spencer Selvidge (photo illustration)

  • Richard Wiles: The TT Interview

    By Brandi Grissom

    The sheriff of El Paso County on how his job has changed in the wake of rampant violence in Juárez, whether National Guard troops are needed on the border and the practical effect of an immigration law like Arizona's. Full Story 

    El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles
    Credit: Courtesy El Paso County Sheriff's Office

  • The Map: The Giant Still Sleeps

    By Matt Stiles, The Texas Tribune, and Zahira Torres, El Paso Times

    Nearly 37 percent of the state's population of nearly 25 million is Latino, but only about 1.2 million Latinos who were registered to vote in 2008 cast ballots. Pinpointing when the emerging majority group in Texas will begin wielding its power at election time is no small feat. Scores of campaigns, party activists and interest groups spend millions of dollars each year trying to determine what will happen when that day comes. Full Story 

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    Credit: El Paso Times

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Ross Ramsey

    Ramshaw's question about an insurance company denying coverage for an infant vaccine prompts a reversal; Stiles' new app lets you poke through mid-year campaign reports on donations and spending; Ramsey finds foreshadowing of the state's big fall races in the campaign finance reports; Aguilar interviews Henry Cisneros about current politics; Dawson finds Texas environmentalists getting advice from an unexpected place; Galbraith on "demand response" that might cut the need for power plants and on the next wave of electric cars; Aguilar on increasing trade through Texas ports of entry; M. Smith on affirmative action battles in higher education; Titus on Mexican college students' drift from border universities to UT-Austin and Texas A&M; and Hamilton on controversy over private, for-profit colleges: The best of our best for the week of July 19 to 23, 2010. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Todd Wiseman

  • Ports of Prosperity

    By Julián Aguilar

    After a sluggish 2009, Texas' top trade districts — Houston, Laredo and El Paso — are rebounding well from the national recession and witnessing huge increases in the value of trade passing through their ports this year. Full Story 

    An international bridge connecting Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • The University of Someplace Else

    By Elizabeth Titus

    Fewer students from Mexico have enrolled at border schools like the University of Texas at El Paso, UT-Pan American, and Texas A&M International since 2006, while their ranks have grown at schools farther from the Rio Grande, like UT-Austin and Texas A&M. Can the drop be attributed to the drug war, or is the growing violence simply compounding the decades-old problem of border "brain drain"? Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Evan Smith

    Grissom's three-part series (here, here and here) on prosperity and peril along the U.S.-Mexico border, Hu on the Division of Workers' Compensation audit report, Stiles puts more than 3,000 personal disclosure forms filed by politicians, candidates and state officials online, M. Smith on attempts to curb the practice of barratry (better known as ambulance chasing), Ramsey interviews the chair of the Texas Libertarian Party, Hamilton on attempts to improve the success rates of community colleges, Galbraith on whether electric deregulation has helped or hurt Texans, Aguilar talks to a chronicler of the bloody narco-wars and Ramshaw on doctors who most often prescribe antipsychotic drugs to the state's neediest patients: The best of our best from July 12 to 16, 2010. Full Story 

    The best of our best from the week of July 12th.

  • Blood Lines: Peace in Poverty

    By Brandi Grissom

    For years, the sister cities of Presidio and Ojinaga watched jealously as other border cities prospered. Now when they look east to the Rio Grande Valley and west to El Paso and Juárez, they see fear and bloodshed, and the envy fades to thankfulness. The poverty and isolation that have held them back keep the violence at bay. But for how long? Full Story 

    Elevated view of Presidio, Texas.
    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • TribBlog: DHS Payday

    By Julián Aguilar

    DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano in Laredo today announced more money for border states and defended an administration under fire from folks on the Mexican border. Full Story 

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    Credit: Bob Daemmrich, Caleb Miller