Gus Bova
By Gus Bova:
Nuevo Laredo Shelter Director Reportedly Kidnapped After Protecting Cuban Migrants
Dan Patrick’s Long History of Toxic Immigrant-Bashing
You know, the kind that might encourage violence in a place like El Paso.
On Saturday morning, a 21-year-old white man allegedly opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in a Walmart just a few miles from the Bridge of the Americas connecting El Paso to its sister city of Juárez. Stalking terrified shoppers in … Read More
In Nuevo Laredo, Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program Feels Chaotic and Dangerous
It’s also kind of working.
Under a blistering noon sun, dozens of migrants from all over Latin America file south along a bridge to the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo, carrying nothing but plastic baggies full of documents and the clothes on their backs. … Read More
How Trump Shredded What Little Protection Our System Offers Migrant Kids
The administration uses emergency exceptions to break government rules for detaining migrant minors. What happens when that becomes the norm?
Detaining kids is bad. Don’t take my word for it; listen to the doctors: “Even brief detention can cause psychological trauma and induce long-term mental health risks for children,” wrote the American Academy of Pediatrics in a 2017 policy statement … Read More
Texas Workers Are Dying on the Job at Alarming Rates
“Literally, we’re not holding employers liable for the lives of their workers.”
In 2017, a worker in Texas died on the job every 16 hours. They died from electrocution, asphyxiation, falls from roofs, exposure to toxins, equipment malfunctions, heat stroke and automobile collisions. The death toll exceeded the number of murders in … Read More
In Matamoros, Asylum-Seekers Wait, and Wait and Wait
Refugees stranded across the border from Brownsville endure interminable delays, leading some — like the father and daughter who drowned last Sunday — to brave the Rio Grande.
In the Mexican border city of Matamoros, just feet from the Gateway International Bridge to Brownsville, a few dozen asylum-seekers cluster beneath the shade of a lone tree shielding them from the blistering Tamaulipan sun. Children sleep on blankets laid … Read More
Shelter Director Ruben Garcia on How Struggling Nonprofits Carry the Load of the Migrant ‘Crisis’
The director of El Paso's Annunciation House has brought compassion to the front lines of migration for four decades.
Ruben Garcia, 70, is a man with the weight of the world — or at least the hemisphere — on his shoulders. The longtime director of Annunciation House, a migrant shelter in El Paso, Garcia has spent the last five … Read More
In the Rio Grande Valley, a Fight to Bring Back NPR
The Valley is now the largest market in the nation without an NPR station.
Just after 2 p.m. on May 30, public radio in the Rio Grande Valley — a 4,800-square-mile border region home to 1.4 million Texans — vanished from the airwaves. All Things Considered? Consider it gone. Local news and classical music … Read More
Democrats Finally Play Hardball on the Border Wall
Emboldened congressional Democrats are going on offense against the wall. And that could be good news for the Rio Grande Valley.
For two and a half years, Congress and President Trump have battled over funding for his beloved border wall. Trump’s never gotten the kind of dough he’s after, but Congress has never truly bucked the president either. Every budget cycle, … Read More
With Proposed Tariffs on Mexico, Trump Attacks Texas
Trump’s 5 percent tax on Mexican goods over Central American immigration would hit Texas harder than any other state.
On Thursday, President Trump announced on Twitter that he plans to impose a 5 percent tariff on all goods coming into the United States from Mexico, effective June 10. The tariff, he warned, would gradually increase until Mexico halts the … Read More
