U.S. Government Settles Lawsuit with ACLU Client Over CBP Officer Abuse
Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas, the University of Texas Civil Rights Clinic, and the Law Office of Gilberto Hinojosa & Associates announced a settlement in which the U.S. Government paid $85,000 to a U.S. citizen with a physical disability who suffered an unconstitutional and vicious takedown by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent at the Brownsville Port of Entry while trying to watch the search...
President Obama: Castner Connects The Past And Future
Mayor Oscar Leeser Mayor of El Paso, Texas Mayor Javier Gonzalez Mocken Mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico President Obama, help unify our community through designating Castner Range as a national monument. If you ask El Pasoans and Juarenses how they view the U.S.-Mexico border between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, they will say the same thing: the separation between the two cities is more or less a fiction. And as the mayors...
Operation Streamline crackdown on illegal immigration costly and ineffective, new report claims
By Aaron Nelsen McALLEN — A controversial program that targets unauthorized immigrants for criminal prosecution has clogged border courts, cost billions to imprison them, and torn apart tens of thousands of families while doing little to deter illegal immigration, according to a new report published Wednesday by Grassroots Leadership and Justice Strategies. The report, “Indefensible: A Decade of Mass Incarceration of Migrants...
Love and Money: How a Border Patrol agent crossed paths with a smuggler and went to prison
ByNicole Cobler It started when a lemon hit Raquel Esquivel on the head. Looking around the HEB in Del Rio, she spotted two old friends from high school – Diego Esquivel and Ramon Patuel – goofing around in the produce aisle. “I said, ‘Hey, y’all just hit me with a lemon,’ and that’s how the conversation started,” she recalled. Raquel Esquivel had left her hometown after graduating from...
New agent in charge of Kingsville Border Patrol Station
By Fares Sabawi of the Caller-Times The Kingsville Border Patrol Station has a new agent in charge. In a news release, the agency announced that Duke Canchola will be the new Patrol Agent in Charge. Canchola has been with the Border Parol since 1997. He previously served in several other positions, including Acting Assistant Chief Patrol Agent and Patrol Agent in Charge the of Laredo Sector Special Operations Detachment. Read the full...
Group stepping up water aid efforts
By Kristian Hernandez NEAR FALFURRIAS — The sun blazed Tuesday afternoon as Eddie Canales and Anna Ibarra of the South Texas Human Rights Center took turns striking a three-foot metal rod into the ground with a sledge hammer for the first of 12 new water stations. “Today is important for us because this is the first time we are allowed to set these stations up in this particular ranch,” said Canales, who allowed The Monitor to ride...