“The scourge of drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, robbery and violence has dismantled our economy, has eroded our tranquility and has stained our social structures with blood,” said Ciudad Juárez’s new mayor, Héctor “Teto” Murguía, at his inauguration Sunday. “This economic and social disaster deserves a desperate cry for help and solidarity.”
Immigration
In-depth reporting on border issues, policies, communities, and the impact of immigration across the state, from The Texas Tribune.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
ICE Under Fire
A year after Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it would reform immigration detention, advocacy groups say the agency has fallen short on a few key counts: addressing alleged human rights violations and expanding alternatives to incarceration.
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Demographics
TribBlog: Search for a Body on Falcon Lake
The office of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar has offered to help Mexican authorities in the search for a U.S. man officials say was shot and killed on Falcon Lake in South Texas.
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Criminal Justice
2010: The Wages of Sin
If the state needs money to balance its budget, it should look first to sin taxes on gambling, alcohol and marijuana.
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Demographics
Ads Infinitum: Rick Perry’s “Border”
Rick Perry’s campaign has released a new ad on the topic of border security that pivots off of the letter the governor hand-delivered to Barack Obama during their brief tarmac meeting in Austin.
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Demographics
TribBlog: Murder at Falcon Lake
Law enforcement agencies are again warning patrons of Falcon Lake in South Texas to stay on the U.S. side of the popular fishing spot. The warning follows the fatal shooting of a U.S. man by Mexican pirates who allegedly attacked him after he traveled into Guerrero Viejo, Tamaulipas, on his Jet Ski.
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Demographics
TribBlog: Immigration Enforcement Program Expands Statewide
Secure Communities, a controversial government program that identifies immigrants in custody in local jails, is now active in every county in Texas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced today.
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Demographics
“We Do Not Want More Deaths”
“It is impossible to carry out our role in these conditions,” read the editorial this week in El Diario de Juárez. “Tell us, therefore, what is expected of us as a medium.” The paper was directly addressing Mexican drug traffickers who assassinated its young photographer Luis Carlos Santiago in broad daylight, but the whole world took notice — and asked if the Mexican media was finally waving the white flag before the cartels and gangs now warring for control of the bloodied country. Diario editor Pedro Torres explains that the intent was simply “to call attention to what is going on.”
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Demographics
Terrence Poppa: The TT Interview
The author of Drug Lord on rumors of Mexican political corruption, how the drug war is like Prohibition, why drug traffickers aren’t like Muslim extremists, whether the U.S. media really understands Mexico and why Hezbollah has set up shop across the border.
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Demographics
DREAM Deferred
The defense bill blocked by Republicans in the U.S. Senate could impact Texas. One of the measures that failed to move forward was an amendment that would have given some undocumented immigrants a path to legal status through education. Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports.