The latest border news from The Texas Tribune.
The El Paso Brut Sun Bowl has sold out more quickly than ever in its 76-year history, officials said today. The sellout comes less than a week after the Oklahoma City daily The Oklahoman, ran a story about how the raging violence in Juarez was keeping many Sooner fans from buying tickets Full Story
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U.S. Border Patrol agents launched Operation Detour to shock kids away from Mexican drug cartel recruiters. Now they're expanding the program across the entire southwest border. Full Story
The U.S. Border Patrol's gritty and graphic effort to turn young Texans away from narco-trafficking. Coming soon to a classroom near you? Full Story
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Border Patrol agents are combatting cartel recruitment with a graphic film designed to scare high school students straight. But some experts say the program misses the mark. Full Story
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El Paso is in the national news today, and — for the first time in recent memory — it has nothing to do with its proximity to drug war-torn Juarez. Forbes actually has some good news about the border city: Incomes for college graduates in El Paso are rising faster than any other major metropolitan area of the nation. Full Story
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Border communities struggle to keep younger, educated residents when larger cities dangle economic and quality-of-life opportunities. They're afflicted with the reputation of being black holes of talent — where escape is necessary in order to prosper. Full Story
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On both sides of the border, there are calls to end the U.S. Border Patrol's Alien Transfer and Exit Program. But Border Patrol officials say their plan to break the connection between smugglers and immigrants is working. Full Story
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The inflamed immigration rhetoric of the past couple of years has waned, but a report the National Conference of State Legislatures released today shows that state lawmakers still have passion for the issue. Full Story
The U.S. Border Patrol says its illegal immigration repatriation program is working to break the crossing cycle in Arizona, but officials in Texas and Mexico worry the program creates more problems than it solves. Full Story
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The number of Mexican-born professionals living in the United States has more than doubled since 1995. They're not the undocumented workers you see in evening-news mug shots or aerial photographs of a littered and barren desert. They're college graduates — some with multiple degrees — who join their blue-collar counterparts in their journeys north. Full Story
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The day after DPS warns parents that Mexican cartels are trying to recruit their kids to sell drugs, the agency issues a press release that says DPS efforts are pushing back drugs and preventing them from getting here. Full Story
That warning comes as law enforcement officials report an increase in the number of youth from Mexico and the United States becoming involved in human and drug trafficking. Full Story
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"Barely adequate." "Haphazard at best." That's how investigators describe the quality of care at immigrant detention centers all over Texas. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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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. Full 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. Full Story
The Web site where you can view border cameras isn't getting the predicted traffic, calling into question the program's law enforcement impact. Full Story
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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. Full Story