Border Control and Customs

Heart of Clay

Why Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins was so quick to come to child migrants' rescue.

It's Official: Perry to Send National Guard Troops to Border

Governor Rick Perry today announced his intention to deploy up to 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border. While Perry cited criminal and cartel violence as his reason, the move comes following the recent surge of Central American children into Texas. Some 60,000 undocumented an ... More >>

GOP Candidate Tony Tinderholt Says He Didn't Catch Illegal Immigrants. He Just Learned about Them, Called Border Patrol

On Saturday, when the other, more ordinary candidates for the Texas House of Representatives were probably making campaign calls or hanging out with their lame families, Arlington Republican Tony Tinderholt appeared to be on a bolder mission. Dressed in camouflage gear, Tinderholt posed for three p ... More >>

Asylum Insanity

Welcome to the land of the free. While we decide whether we feel like deporting you, we've got a cold dank cell that'll suit you just fine.

Mexican Drug Cartels Are Now Smuggling Drugs Across the Texas Border in Toxic Waste

The Mexican cartels, never ones to rest on their ingenuity, are always coming up with new and inventive ways to smuggle large quantities of drugs into the United States. Take the drug cannon, modeled on the T-shirt launching devices used at NBA games, or the brilliant drive-a-Jeep-over-a-border-fenc ... More >>

The Feds Say They Busted Up a Mansfield-Based Steroid Ring Last Month

On February 5, U.S. Postal Inspectors customs agents were doing a routine inspection at the North Texas Processing and Distribution Center when they spotted a package freshly arrived from Singapore and destined for a home address in Crowley. The customs agents opened the mail -- they have the autho ... More >>

Arlington Police Bought Two Drones, Which They Hope to Start Using Very Soon

Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration released a list of all the city and state entities who have applied for a license to fly unmanned aerial drones. That list was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), an organization tha ... More >>

When Venezuelans Need Guns, It Seems, They Turn to a Parking Lot in Mesquite

You can't buy a gun in Venezuela. It's illegal, and has been since the government of Hugo Chavez banned the private sale of firearms earlier this year as part of an effort to tackle the country's sky-high murder rate: 19,336 last year, more than in Mexico, which is in the midst of a drug war and has ... More >>

Dallas ICE Agent Sues ICE, Homeland Security Over Obama's Deportation Deferral

Ten ICE agents, including one from the Dallas office, are suing ICE and Homeland Security in a Dallas federal court over a directive from President Barack Obama that would defer in some cases the deportation of undocumented immigrants brought here as children. Dallas enforcement and removal officer ... More >>

A Tamer, More Tethered Adventure

When Arizona's Immigration Law is Upheld, the Floodgates of Hate Will Swing Open

The U.S. Supreme Court and President Obama leave the undocumented and their allies no choice but to escalate civil disobedience.

How To Not Get Deported

So, you're an undocumented immigrant. Your great hope is to stick around, make a living and, some day, become naturalized. Unfortunately, our immigration laws are a tangled morass of inscrutability, insensible to the realities of a globalized world. You may have watched last week's Republican deba ... More >>

Innocuous Pepper Turned Capsicum Criminal: Jalapeños Busted at the Border

A truckload of jalapeño peppers was seized in Pharr, Texas, this Thursday, according to a Customs and Border Patrol news release. The alleged marijuana from this seizure has an estimated street value of approximately $3,162,530. CBP officers seized the narcotics and the tractor-trailer. The peppe ... More >>

So How Is Prioritizing Undocumented Immigrant Deportations Going? Suckily.

​It's been nearly six months since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton issued a memo to his subordinates, which we'll translate from bureaucrat-speak for you: Look, we got scarce resources, so don't head out into the field looking to pop every Tomas, Diego and Enrique ... More >>

Why Don't Mexicans Just Come to this Country Legally?

And how can we keep them out otherwise?

Tom Leppert Reviews Obama's Immigration Policy Speech Given in El Paso Tuesday

Official White House Photo by Pete SouzaPresident Obama in El Paso on Tuesday​No doubt you're well aware that President Barack Obama was in El Paso yesterday, where he said that "genuine, comprehensive reform" was the only way to repair a "broken immigration system." In his speech, posted in its e ... More >>

How Not to Bring Dope Through DFW Airport

Courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection​As The Musers might say, count the red flags in this story: U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that on Tuesday, it stopped two 22-year-old Japanese citizens at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport who were on their way from Jamaica to ... More >>

Dallas, You Are Now Free(-ish) to Fly to Cuba

​So says this just-posted AP piece, which notes that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has decided to allow charter flights to Cuba from eight new airports -- among them Baltimore, New Orleans, Atlanta, San Juan ... and Dallas-Fort Worth International! Till now, you could only fly out of New York ... More >>

What Makes Iguana Meat Worth Smuggling?

www.jagendorf.comTastes just like...yeah, you guessed it.​The attempted iguana meat caper that unfolded yesterday at the Laredo border posed a pressing question for food enthusiasts: Just what did those confiscated iguana tamales taste like? U.S. Customs and Border Patrol seized 58 pounds of ... More >>

Come Wednesday, Don't Worry About Those Fighters Overhead, Arlington. It's Only a Drill.

​Few weeks back we got a long, hard look at the Federal Aviation Administration's no-fly-zone for Super Bowl Sunday. Ah, yes, but what to do when someone decides to launch their seaplane or go hang-gliding anyhows? Well, of course -- North American Aerospace Defense Command to the rescue.But NORAD ... More >>

The Feds Bury Border Patrol Abuses of Immigrants, But What's Been Unearthed Reveals a Culture of Cruelty

Operation Streamline costs taxpayers millions, tramples on the Constitution, treats immigrants like cattle and doesn't work. So why are the feds so committed to it?

Illegal Immigrants, Desperate To Find Work In The U.S., Risk Kidnapping, Rape and Murder From Those Smuggling Them Across the Border

Read a penetrating chapter from former Phoenix New Times investigative reporter Terry Greene Sterling's book: ILLEGAL: Life and Death in Arizona's Immigration War Zone

Cowboy Down: Murdered Southern Arizona Rancher Rob Krentz's Family Talk About His Life and Death

For Those Living in Ground Zero for Drug Trafficking Along the U.S.-Mexico Border, the Illegal Immigration Crisis is Personal

Badlands

Wait a dang Minute Man: Who's This Guy Filling in for the Mexican?

East Side Homeboy Who Shot at Cops Near Woodrow Is Found Guilty by Federal Jury

​When the shooting occurred in June, it merited but a few paragraphs in a crime brief headlined, "19-year-old fires on gang officers, Dallas police say." Today, though, the U.S. Attorney sends word that a federal jury found Rene Salazar, a member of the East Side Homeboys, guilty of two counts of ... More >>

Pull Over, Please

Centraltrak would like to search your vehicle

Janet Napolitano’s Sorry Service in Arizona Makes Her a Terrible Choice for Homeland Security Secretary

Gustav Isn't Screwing Around, and Neither is the City of Dallas

National Weather Service About an hour ago, city officials gave local media members a tour of the Dallas Convention Center, in which Dallas expects to hold folks fleeing Hurricane Gustav, which is close to reaching Category 5 status as it approaches the Louisiana coastline. Only, the city keeps in ... More >>

Ask a Mexican

If Germany had won the War to End All Wars, we'd all be living in Dallas, Tejas

Ask a Mexican

Hail Cesar, who was capable of changing his mind

Ask a Mexican

COPS isn't a sociology course, and Mexicans aren't really born to run. So there.

An Over-Wide Net

The Waiting Game

Emilio Gonzalez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is in Dallas today, paying a visit to the Dallas U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office. And he'll be greeted by "dozens of legal residents waiting to become U.S. citizens" who are marching on the North Stemmons Freewa ... More >>

Patrolling South Texas for Illegal Immigrants

Border Patrolman Jorge Diaz left Mexico at 12. For 20 years, he's trolled the South Texas brush for illegal compatriots.

Swift Justice? Not Bloody Likely.

Illustration by Brian Stauffer So, it’s official: All 53 illegal immigrants charged with fraud after the December raid at Swift & Co.’s Cactus meatpacking plant have pled guilty in federal court in Amarillo. They face five to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 for using the stolen ... More >>

You Know Who Likes the President's Immigration Reform Plan? Nobody, That's Who.

�Ask a Mexican!

Beats a Weekend in Oklahoma City

It's everyone's dream to be an illegal immigrant, right? Walking for days through the desert with little food or water, watching painful blisters pop up on your heels and burning or freezing your feet since no one told you to wear decent shoes. And the most fun of all -- dishing out $2,000 only to f ... More >>

The Big Foist

Paper Chase

A former INS agent goes into business to smoke out fake documents

The Hunted

Minutemen train their sights on a new target: Hispanic day laborers

Simple minds

ICE, ICE, baby

Bubba Patrol

The Minutemen are ready to patrol Texas' border. Are we ready for them?

Soldiers of Misfortune

Ranch Rescue�s paramilitary posse may have guns and camo gear to keep the border safe, but what they need is a good lawyer

Heavy Traffic

Border drug lords get rich while attorney Mike Barclay gets worn out defending the poor smugglers

Open Season

Border authorities fear a return to the law of the Wild West as Texas homeowners take up guns against illegal Mexican immigrants