top of page


The Machinery Behind Trump's Immigration Overhaul Reaches Border Counties
Everyone knows about the raids, but fewer people are tracking the paperwork behind them. Wednesday morning, unmarked vehicles circled unsuspecting subjects, carrying them away in handcuffs. The raids that people see on the news are now happening in Starr County. Residents believed this would never reach them. What's landing in Starr County didn't start there. It started with a plan built in Washington, long before any vehicle circled a parking lot in Rio Grande City looking f

Maria Salinas
Jul 234 min read


Comply or Die Is a Pattern, Not a Warning
Somebody's mother taught her children to keep their hands where officers could see them, to speak slowly, to do exactly what the badge said and nothing more. That lesson used to buy safety. Renee Good followed it. Alex Pretti followed it. Ruben Ray Martinez followed it, brake lights lit, car barely moving, hands where anyone could see them. All three ended up dead anyway, and the country owes their families more than a press release calling it self-defense. "Comply or die" is

Maria Salinas
Jul 105 min read


Officer-Induced Jeopardy
Here's what you need to know about how federal agents are trained to kill people and call it self-defense. In February 2013, the Police Executive Research Forum delivered a report to Customs and Border Protection that should have ended careers. Instead, CBP tried to bury it. The nonprofit had reviewed 67 use-of-force incidents from January 2010 through October 2012 that left 19 people dead along the southern border. What they found was a pattern so egregious it read like a tr

Maria Salinas
Jan 143 min read
bottom of page