TribBlog: Border Rep. to Congress: "We Are at the Tipping Point"
Border lawmakers are asking Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars for border security before "the violence unfolds across the Rio Grande." Full Story
The latest border news from The Texas Tribune.
Border lawmakers are asking Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars for border security before "the violence unfolds across the Rio Grande." Full Story
Gov. Rick Perry has invested $4 million in the Texas Border Watch Program over two years. Twenty-nine cameras have been installed on the 1,200-mile Texas-Mexico border, or one camera for every 41 miles of border. Internet viewers have helped police make a total of 26 arrests — that’s about $153,800 per arrest. Full Story
"The fact is, we shouldn't have to be doing anything. The federal government's responsibility has always been to operate the security mechanism along the border." Full Story
The mayor of Ciudad Juárez was in Austin on Monday to discuss his city's plight at a University of Texas forum. He took a few moments to talk with the Tribune. Full Story
Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz sits down with Tribune reporters Brandi Grissom and Julian Aguilar to discuss the economy and security situation in his border city. Full Story
Just days after the withdrawal of the majority of military troops deployed to patrol the streets of the most violent city in the Americas, the city’s mayor concedes his local police force is still infiltrated with elements of organized crime. Full Story
Juárez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz addresses rampant rumors that he's found a home in El Paso instead of living in his violence-ridden city. In an excerpt of an interview with Tribune reporters Brandi Grissom and Julian Aguilar, Reyes Ferriz blames the media for the residency questions. Reyes Ferriz visited Austin Monday as part of a forum at the University of Texas-Austin. His extended interview will be posted on Wednesday. Full Story
Grissom on her two hours in Juárez, Grissom, Ramshaw and Ramsey on four of the runoffs on Tuesday's ballot, Ramshaw on the religious experience that is voting for Dallas County's DA and an energy regulator's play for a job at the entity he regulates, Mulvaney on the Texas Senate's biggest spenders, Aguilar on whether — as U.S. officials claim — 90 percent of guns used in Mexican crimes really flow south from Texas, M. Smith on the continuing Texas Forensic Science Commission follies, Stiles on how inmates spend their money behind bars and how counties are responding at Census time, Hamilton on the creative accounting and semantic trickery that allows lawmakers to raise revenue without hiking taxes when there's a budget shortfall, and Hu on Austin's first-in-the-nation car-sharing program. The best of our best from April 5 to 9, 2010. Full Story
Interview with El Paso Mayor John Cook Full Story
Interview with El Paso Mayor John Cook Full Story
Interview with El Paso Mayor John Cook Full Story
Interview with El Paso Mayor John Cook Full Story
Interview with El Paso Mayor John Cook Full Story
The mayor of El Paso on how the drug war raging in Juárez is affecting his city (and the national media's perception of it), whether violence is really spilling over and how state and federal leaders are doing at addressing the problem of border security. Full Story
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