TribBlog: McCraw Says Mexico Worse Than Colombia
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
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The latest immigration news from The Texas Tribune.
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
Texans' lagging response to the U.S. census questionnaire is getting the attention of the higher-ups at the bureau. Full Story
Lawmakers are reeling from the bruising political battle over health care reform and are loath to take on another divisive issue and additional risky votes. So the prospects remain dim for legislation that would improve border security, provide a pathway to citizenship for millions and crack down on unscrupulous employers — but that doesn't mean everyone's forgotten about it, as the hundreds of thousands of advocates who marched on Washington, D.C., last weekend can attest. 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
Detainees with mental impairments lack proper medical evaluation when they enter the federal immigration detention system and don't get adequate medication and access to social services, according to a new study. Full Story
Bill White's successor as Houston's nonpartisan mayor, Annise Parker, is staying out of the governor's race. She does, though, have a clear opinion on the Rick Perry campaign's "sanctuary city" charge. Full Story
The U.S. Census Bureau recently launched an interactive map that makes it easy to track participation in the decennial count of households. The map application, which relies on the Google Maps API, visualizes the participation rates by color — orange for higher rates, and blue for lower rates. Full Story
As of Friday, three-quarters of Texans hadn't returned their census forms. Only five states have a worse rate of participation so far. Full Story
The president's nominee for commissioner of Customs and Border Protection gets the job without Senate confirmation. Full Story
Grissom on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to stay Hank Skinner's execution, Thevenot on the myth of Texas textbook influence, Rapoport on the wild card who was just elected to the State Board of Education, Ramshaw on the price of health care reform, Philpott on the just-enacted prohibition on dropping kids from the state's health insurance rolls, M. Smith on the best little pole tax in Texas, Ramsey on the first corporate political ad and the reality of 2011 redistricting, Stiles on the fastest-growing Texas counties, Aguilar on the vacany at top of Customs and Border Protection at the worst possible time, Galbraith on the state's lack of renewable energy sources other than wind and its investment in efficiency, and Hu and Hamilton on the runoffs to come in House districts 52 and 127. The best of our best from March 22 to 26, 2010. Full Story
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White today called on GOP Gov. Rick Perry to remove claims on his public and campaign Web sites that crime on the Texas border has dropped 65 percent. Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner defended the claims. He said Perry's claim refers to temporary crime drops in discreet areas during so-called "border surge" operations. Full Story
A federal judge declared on Wednesday that a Farmers Branch ordinance that banned apartment rentals to undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional. Full Story
Senior leaders from the United States and Mexico agreed the two countries will begin swapping intelligence on suspected terrorists and Mexican felons following discussions in Mexico City on Tuesday. Full Story
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn wants to join the Mexico discussion and is urging fellow U.S. senators to lend him an ear. Full Story
When high-ranking officials in the Obama administration travel to Mexico today to discuss that country's role in combating border violence, one key member of the team will be missing: the commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security, whose nomination has languished in the U.S. Senate since September. Full Story
Leaders from one end of the Texas-Mexico border to the other want Gov. Rick Perry to tone down the scary rhetoric and get real about solving problems in their hometowns. And, by the way, they would like to be consulted about security plans that affect their communities. "We know what's going on on the border," says Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas. "Our needs were not taken into consideration." Full Story
Grissom on the 1.2 million Texans who've lost their licenses under the Driver Responsibility Act and the impenetrable black box that is the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Ramshaw and Kraft on nurses with substance abuse problems and rehabilitation that can get them back to work, M. Smith finds it's not easy being Rick Green, Stiles on counting Texans (and everybody else), Rapoport on the State Board of Education's war with itself and the runoff in SBOE District 10, Thevenot's revealing interview with a big-city superintendent on closing bad schools, Aguilar on the tensions over water on the Texas-Mexico border, Hamilton on the new Coffee Party, Hu on Kesha Rogers and why her party doesn't want her, Philpott on the runoff in HD-47, Ramsey on Bill White and the politics of taxes, and E. Smith's conversation with Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heleimann: The best of our best from March 15 to 19. Full Story
The federal government seems to be warming to Gov. Rick Perry's demands for an unmanned drone on the Texas-Mexico border. Full Story
At the heart of America's symbiotic relationship with Mexico is a long-standing and sometimes tense agreement over an issue more far-reaching than homeland security and immigration: water. Full Story
I suppose if you're a Texas politician this week you just have to make hay out of the situation on the border. Today, it was Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White's turn. Full Story