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Mexico aims to wear out migrants
We are getting a better sense as to just why the number of migrants crossing into Texas over the last four months has dropped so significantly.
Driven by mounting pressure from the U.S. to block millions of vulnerable people headed north, but lacking the funds to deport them, Mexican authorities are employing a simple but harsh tactic: wearing migrants out until they give up.
According to reporting from the Associated Press that means migrants are churning in limbo in Mexico as authorities round them up across the country and dump them in the southern Mexican cities of Villahermosa and Tapachula. Some have been punted back as many as six times keeping them from getting close to the U.S. border.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said this week that the policy protects migrants.
"We care a lot ... about keeping migrants in the southeast because crossing to the north is very risky," López Obrador said in his morning press briefing, responding to a question from The Associated Press about busing migrants to southern Mexico.
But the moves have forced migrants, including pregnant women and children, into even more precarious situations. That's likely to worsen under President Joe Biden's new asylum restrictions, analysts say.
Along the five sectors of the U.S. border that include Texas, federal officials reported just 53,000 encounters with migrants in April, less than half the number of encounters from a year ago. And in the Rio Grande Valley sector, once one of the most crossed sections of the border, fewer than 9,000 encounters were reported in April. At one point in 2021, more than 80,000 encounters were reported there in a single month.
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's up, who's down
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was among members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee blasting regulators for failing to do more to combat the rise of illegal Chinese-made e-cigarettes that are being sold in the U.S. Upon hearing that China, to protect their children, has banned the same flavored e-cigarettes that are still on U.S. shelves, Cornyn ripped into FDA officials. "You can't sell them in China but you can sell them in the United States?" Cornyn said, vowing to introduce legislation to address "an outrageous and unacceptable status quo."
Down: San Antonio Police.
The department failed to meet a state-mandated guideline in its handling of nearly 10% of sexual assault test kits collected over two years, a new city audit found. The kits include DNA evidence such as bodily fluids and skin cells, which are gathered by medical professionals in hospitals after an attack. The test results can be invaluable in sexual assault investigations.
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What else is going on in Texas
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Photo by: Staff Photographer
A new joint investigation from the Houston Chronicle and The Examination finds that Texas oil companies are leaking hydrogen sulfide gas into communities near families and schools with few or no repercussions. And regulators are doing little to stop them. Reporters Will Evans, Caroline Ghisolfi and Amanda Drane have more here about it.
What else I'm reading
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan tells the Beaumont Enterprise that he expects to remain in his leadership post next year despite a close call in his GOP primary this year. "I plan to return as Speaker in the next legislative session and look forward to visiting with new and returning members to gain a better understanding of their priorities for their districts and the State of Texas in the coming months," he told the paper.
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