The inmates who escaped from a prison in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, which sits across from Laredo, are likely part of a plan to bolster the ranks of the Zetas cartel, says Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar.
Immigration
In-depth reporting on border issues, policies, communities, and the impact of immigration across the state, from The Texas Tribune.
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Demographics
TribBlog: Jailbreak on the Border
At least 140 prisoners escaped from a Nuevo Laredo prison today, though that number is believed to be a conservative estimate. Mexican media outlet El Universal reported this morning that the number of escapees could exceed 190.
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Demographics
Safe at Home?
A month after cartel warfare forced residents of the Mexican city of Ciudad Mier to abandon their homes and seek refuge on the Texas side of the border, they have tentatively started to make their way back, buoyed by the presence of three military battalions. What happens when the soldiers leave is anyone’s guess.
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Demographics
Open for Business
So much for the economic impact of headline-making violence. Despite being on track to exceed 3,000 homicides this year, Juárez has seen its manufacturing sector flourish, regaining since July 2009 a quarter of the jobs lost during the height of the recession. More than $42 billion in trade value moved through the ports that the city shares with El Paso last year, and that number should be higher in 2010. And the amount of of tractor-trailer traffic hauling goods through the region was 22 percent greater in the first six months of this year than it was in the same period last year.
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Demographics
Back on the Bus
The U.S. Border Patrol is restarting its controversial Alien Transfer and Exit Program, in which illegal border-crossers caught in Arizona are transported to Texas and deported to Mexico. Texas officials say the plan makes as little sense to them now as it did last year.
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Demographics
TribBlog: Officials: U.S. Press Fails at Covering Mexican Peers
Though successful in covering the gruesome aspects of the cartel-related carnage in Mexico, the U.S. press falls short in exposing the muzzling of its Mexican counterparts at the hands of organized crime, says Ricardo Trotti, director of press freedom at the Inter American Press Association.
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Demographics
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
M. Smith and Butrymowicz of the Hechinger Institute on charter schools and public schools making nice in the Valley, Ramsey’s interview with House Speaker candidate Ken Paxton and column on the coming budget carnage, Hu on the Legislature’s disappearing white Democratic women, Grissom on the sheriff who busted Willie Nelson, Hamilton talks higher ed accountability with the chair of the Governor’s Business Council, Aguilar on the arrest of a cartel kingpin, Ramshaw on the explosive growth in the number of adult Texans with diabetes, Philpott on state incentive funding under fire and Galbraith on the greening of Houston: The best of our best from November 29 to December 3, 2010.
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Demographics
In the Jailhouse Now
When country music icon Willie Nelson got arrested for marijuana possession last week, he wasn’t the only Texas legend who figured in the story. Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, who put Willie in the local pokey, is a reigning symbol of the years-long fight over border security and immigration.
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Demographics
“A Many-Headed Monster”
Mexican police think they’ve caught the drug kingpin behind the murder of a U.S. consulate employee and an El Paso sheriff’s deputy in Juárez in March. But it’s unlikely the arrest of a cartel leader will stem the tide of violence.
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Demographics
Border Troopers See More High-Speed Pursuits
Troopers on the Texas-Mexico border reported more high-speed chases than officers in any other region of the state. The Texas Tribune and the San Antonio Express-News analyzed data from nearly 5,000 DPS pursuit reports from January 2005 through July 2010. Of the 10 counties with the most chases, five were counties along the Texas-Mexico border. In this video, DPS Trooper Johnny Hernandez in Hidalgo County talks about why officers on the border see more pursuits than their colleagues across the state.