Check our new Perrypedia — a home for stories and data about you-know-who, Ramshaw on health care in the colonias, Root’s look back at Rick Perry’s years as a Democrat, M. Smith on the pressures facing the TEA, yours truly on David Dewhurst’s impact on the U.S. Senate race, E. Smith’s panel discussion on the Cameron Todd Willingham case, Hamilton on Perry and higher ed, Murphy on who’s paying the pole tax, Grissom on Alto’s decision to close its police department, Aguilar on labor and security worries over trucking on the border and Galbraith on what government can’t do during a drought: The best of our best content from July 11 to 15, 2011.
border
Posted in
Demographics
Update: Fifty-Nine On the Run After Nuevo Laredo Jailbreak
At least 59 inmates escaped from a state prison in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo today.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Lawyers, Guns and Money
The Department of Justice’s decision this week to require firearms dealers in Texas and three other border states to report the multiple sales of long rifles will come down to a funding battle in Washington.
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Demographics
Trucking Program Raises Border Policy Questions
Some Texas Republicans are embracing a cross-border trucking agreement between the U.S. and Mexico that labor unions worry could kill jobs and drastically reduce border security.
Posted in
Demographics
Conditions, Health Risks Sicken Colonias Residents
Along the Texas-Mexico border, colonias residents tell identical stories: of migrating with dreams of safety and prosperity, of getting swindled into buying worthless land, of sticking it out so their children will get educated. And of getting sick.
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Demographics
Red Tape, Catch-22s Slow Progress in Texas Colonias
Conditions have clearly improved in Texas’ colonias since devious developers first established them for migrant workers in the 1950s. But many efforts have fallen short, the result of bureaucratic nightmares and a spiral of confusion and fees.
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Demographics
Video: Health and Conditions in Texas’ Colonias
On the Texas side of the U.S. border with Mexico, an estimated half a million people live in colonias, impoverished subdivisions that often lack basic services. Take our video tour of some of the worst — and most improved — conditions.
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Demographics
Mexico and the U.S. Agree to Terms on Trucking Deal
U.S. and Mexico inked a deal today that marks the end of a years-long dispute over how far past the border long-haul tractor-trailers can travel.
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Demographics
Lawmaker to State Troopers: Help Fight Drug Cartels
A border-area lawmaker in Texas wants state troopers to help the federal government stop southbound weapons and funds that are boosting Mexican drug cartels. Hernán Rozemberg of public radio’s Fronteras Desk reports.
Posted in
Demographics
Illegal Re-entry Cases Surge Under Obama
Texans are hammering away at Barack Obama for failing to secure our borders and for refusing to put forward a comprehensive immigration-reform plan, but the number of federal prosecutions for “illegal re-entry” has quietly skyrocketed under his administration.