Demographics

"Barely adequate." "Haphazard at best." That's how investigators describe the quality of care at immigrant detention centers all over Texas.

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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.

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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.

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For many who call the border home, all the guns, all the money, all the technology, and all the police badges have done little to address the problems that make their lives insecure.

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One little speech and everybody’s all atwitter.

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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.

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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.

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The Web site where you can view border cameras isn't getting the predicted traffic, calling into question the program's law enforcement impact.

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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.

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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.

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Experts from around the U.S. and Mexico are debating the War on Drugs and its affect on violence south of the border. Some of them wonder whether decriminalization is the answer.

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What concerns me as a Republican is that the race for governor may be focusing too much on the personalities of the candidates and the highly charged nature of the race rather than the long-term vision and consequences. I worry that either candidate could win the race but lose the future — too much focus on the politics of the next year, rather than the policies of the next decade.

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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.

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

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Your afternoon reading.

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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.

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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.

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The economy clearly leads Texans' list of concerns about the country in the inaugural University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

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State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh's decision not to run for reelection creates many opportunities for El Paso politicians, but in this Democrat-dominated city, the cards are stacked against Republicans.

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Starting Monday, U.S. Border Patrol plans to ship about 100 undocumented immigrants a day from Arizona back to Mexico through a remote border entry point in Presidio, and Gov. Rick Perry is displeased.

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