Whose Guns are They?
U.S. officials claim that most firearms used in crimes in Mexico are flowing south from Texas — with Houston, Dallas and the Rio Grande Valley as the top sources. Full Story
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The latest border news from The Texas Tribune.
U.S. officials claim that most firearms used in crimes in Mexico are flowing south from Texas — with Houston, Dallas and the Rio Grande Valley as the top sources. Full Story
What I saw was not entirely what I expected. I expected charred buildings. I expected soldiers with automatic weapons everywhere. I expected empty streets and residents skulking around in fear. To be sure, there were signs of danger — but in many parts of Juárez, there were also people determined to remain, to do their best to live as normally as possible. Full Story
That's how Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw described the violence raging in Mexico’s drug war at a House hearing on Tuesday. Full Story
The unsolved murder of a border journalist gunned down in front of his daughter has prompted the Inter American Press Association to call on Mexican President Felipe Calderon to address the country’s “negligence, apathy and irregularities” when investigating the deaths of members of the media. Full Story
The situation in Mexico is worse now than the Colombian drug war of the 1980s and 1990s ever was, Texas Department of Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw told state lawmakers today. Full Story
The former secretary of state talked foreign policy, partisan politics and the national debt at an event co-presented by the Tribune, the Center for Politics and Governance at UT's LBJ School of Public Affairs, and the LBJ Library. Full Story
Detainees with mental impairments lack proper medical evaluation when they enter the federal immigration detention system and don't get adequate medication and access to social services, according to a new study. Full Story
Lawmakers are reeling from the bruising political battle over health care reform and are loath to take on another divisive issue and additional risky votes. So the prospects remain dim for legislation that would improve border security, provide a pathway to citizenship for millions and crack down on unscrupulous employers — but that doesn't mean everyone's forgotten about it, as the hundreds of thousands of advocates who marched on Washington, D.C., last weekend can attest. Full Story
The president's nominee for commissioner of Customs and Border Protection gets the job without Senate confirmation. Full Story
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White today called on GOP Gov. Rick Perry to remove claims on his public and campaign Web sites that crime on the Texas border has dropped 65 percent. Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner defended the claims. He said Perry's claim refers to temporary crime drops in discreet areas during so-called "border surge" operations. Full Story
Senior leaders from the United States and Mexico agreed the two countries will begin swapping intelligence on suspected terrorists and Mexican felons following discussions in Mexico City on Tuesday. Full Story
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn wants to join the Mexico discussion and is urging fellow U.S. senators to lend him an ear. Full Story
When high-ranking officials in the Obama administration travel to Mexico today to discuss that country's role in combating border violence, one key member of the team will be missing: the commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security, whose nomination has languished in the U.S. Senate since September. Full Story
Leaders from one end of the Texas-Mexico border to the other want Gov. Rick Perry to tone down the scary rhetoric and get real about solving problems in their hometowns. And, by the way, they would like to be consulted about security plans that affect their communities. "We know what's going on on the border," says Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas. "Our needs were not taken into consideration." Full Story
Lawmakers from both sides of the US/Mexico border were in Mexico City this week working on plans to combat growing border drug violence. Violence that has grabbed headlines in Texas in recent days. KUT’s Ben Philpott reports on the plans to curb border violence. Full Story
Grissom on the 1.2 million Texans who've lost their licenses under the Driver Responsibility Act and the impenetrable black box that is the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Ramshaw and Kraft on nurses with substance abuse problems and rehabilitation that can get them back to work, M. Smith finds it's not easy being Rick Green, Stiles on counting Texans (and everybody else), Rapoport on the State Board of Education's war with itself and the runoff in SBOE District 10, Thevenot's revealing interview with a big-city superintendent on closing bad schools, Aguilar on the tensions over water on the Texas-Mexico border, Hamilton on the new Coffee Party, Hu on Kesha Rogers and why her party doesn't want her, Philpott on the runoff in HD-47, Ramsey on Bill White and the politics of taxes, and E. Smith's conversation with Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heleimann: The best of our best from March 15 to 19. Full Story
The federal government seems to be warming to Gov. Rick Perry's demands for an unmanned drone on the Texas-Mexico border. Full Story
At the heart of America's symbiotic relationship with Mexico is a long-standing and sometimes tense agreement over an issue more far-reaching than homeland security and immigration: water. Full Story
I suppose if you're a Texas politician this week you just have to make hay out of the situation on the border. Today, it was Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White's turn. Full Story
Revealing more details about the first phase of the border spillover prevention plan that he activated Tuesday, Gov. Rick Perry today announced he is sending two helicopters to the Texas-Mexico border, an OH-58 Kiowa and a UH-72 Lakota. The exact locations of the choppers, however, will not be released for security purposes. Full Story