Illegal Immigration and Deportation

Special Best Of Edicion: Do Mexicans Cause the Closures of Hospitals?

And how many cases of leprosy come from Mexico per year?

Special Best Of Edition

Comment of the Day: The Immigration Debate, With Some All-Caps Action

We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them. So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning or afternoon from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula i ... More >>

Rafa & Cuco: Smuggling 17 Illegals in a Toyota Tundra

Two men received stiff sentences for running an illegal-immigrant smuggling business that was exposed when a Toyota Tundra carrying 17 of their clients crashed, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston announced today. Rafael Valles, "a.k.a. El Viejo or Rafa," and Refugio Reyna-Huerta, "a.k.a. Cuco," ... More >>

Wayne Christian: State Rep Hilariously Backtracks from That "In-State Tuition for Illegals" Vote

East Texas state rep Wayne Christian, like most other legislators, voted for a bill in 2003 that allowed children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition for colleges. As the hardcore rightwinger notes, the vote was not even a bit controversial at the time, coming as it did as part of a more ... More >>

Alabama Illegal Immigration Law: Texas Tea Partiers Can Only Look On In Awe

That truck is no doubt filled with dehydrated, oxygen-starved illegals​Sure, Rick Perry can swagger about a meaningless "sanctuary bill" to keep the brown hordes out of Texas, but if you want real action on illegal immigration, the place to go is Alabama. That state's governor, faced with the ... More >>

Texas: Immigration Detention Capital of the Country

In Texas, illegal immigration is often extremely lucrative.​Texas is number one again today. To our trophy case of great honors, we add Most Beholden To Private Corporations, When It Comes To Illegal Immigration. The Detention Watch Network recently released aggregated data about the big busi ... More >>

May Day Immigration Rally Draws Thousands (and Opponents) in Houston

Photos by Christopher Patronella, Jr.​Some three thousand people joined together in Houston on Sunday to take part in May Day rallies held all across the nation as the battle over immigration laws has taken center stage. Demonstrators blanketed the streets around Burnett Bayland Park as they flow ... More >>

SPECIAL APRIL FOOLS' EDICION

Return to Sender

What Would Comprehensive Immigration Reform Look Like If the Feds Got Off Their Duffs?

Cloaked Brutality

The feds bury border patrol abuses of immigrants, but what’s been unearthed reveals a culture of cruelty.

FAIR-y Tales

Russell Pearce and Other Illegal-Immigration Populists Rely on Misleading, Right-Wing Reports to Scapegoat Immigrants and Terrify Penny-Pinched Americans.

FAIR-y Tales: Mexican Macro-economics

FAIR-y Tales: Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?

State Rep. Debbie Riddle's Pre-Filed Bills: A Sampling

Debbie Riddle's got a full plate​Monday was the first day to pre-file bills for the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature, and Tomball State Rep. Debbie Riddle famously camped out to get first crack at things. She filed nine bills. Not all of them deal with the Brown Menace attacking the ... More >>

Grinding Justice

Operation Streamline costs millions, tramples the Constitution, treats migrants like cattle and doesn't work.

Sheriff Adrian Garcia Helps Feds Trumpet Stats On Illegal-Alien Removals

Photo by Austin MillerSheriff Adrian Garcia, hyping the Obama administration​The Immigration & Customs Enforcement department brought in some help for today's announcement in Washington about how great they're doing removing illegal aliens: Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia.Garcia appeared w ... More >>

Pinalcchio

Renowned forensics experts say a Pinal County deputy's high-profile tale about getting shot after encountering drug smugglers doesn't add up

Seized

Inside the brutal world of America's kidnapping capital

Rudy Trace Soliz III: Sweet, Sweet Sex Was Why Border Agent Let Illegals In

Another victim claimed​Just as jury selection was about to begin in his trail late yesterday, Rudy Trace Soliz III, a former Customs and Border Protection, pleaded guilty to alien smuggling and bribery, the U.S. Attorney's office announced today.Soliz, 28, let a female co-conspirator bring illegal ... More >>

Welcome to Mi Pueblito, Washington

The small-town, family-farm lifestyle that we love to celebrate is being preserved — thanks to Mexican immigrants.

An Immigrant's Heart

To survive the ordeal of escaping Guatemala, Julia needed a big Heart. But not this big.

Cowboy Down

Rob Krentz's family talks about the life and death of the murdered Arizona rancher.

Badlands

From Ground Zero of the immigration crisis along the Mexican border

Aggies & Illegal Immigrants: A Sudden Bout Of Common Sense

The Student Senate holds off on whether illegal immigrants should pay out-of-state tuition​Maybe it's just people steeped in Aggie stereotypes who hold their breath when hearing Texas A&M is wading into something like the debate on illegal immigration, but it's certain that breath is being hel ... More >>

More Mexican Slang and Healthcare Issues

Shipley Do-Nuts Pays Up For Using Illegal Immigrants

​Shipley Do-Nuts, the oddly spelled longtime Houston morning favorite, will be forking over a ton of cash to the feds for using illegal immigrants in the workplace.The U.S. Attorney's office has announced the company will pay a $250,000 fine and forfeit $1.3 million to the government for harboring ... More >>

American-born Cajun With Checkered Past Deported From Houston To Honduras

Diane Williams has had a pretty rough life. Over the past 20 years, the 34-year-old black-haired, olive-skinned Cajun of partial Native American ancestry has been arrested numerous times here and her native Louisiana on ticky-tack drug and prostitution charges.At some point, she started resorting to ... More >>

Rally Tomorrow At Mason Park For The DREAM Act

Photo courtesy of Marina Castillo-KnutiKeep the DREAM alive. That's what community activists in Houston are trying to do tomorrow at Mason Park when they hold a rally in support of the DREAM Act, a piece of federal legislation that would allow certain undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship. ... More >>

Illegal Immigrants and Stay-At-Home Mexicans

No Honest Players Among Human Smugglers

Illegal immigrants are subject to pain and death at the hands of their "rescuers" if they don't pay up in full

Was Cesar Chavez Really Against Illegal Immigration?

The DREAM Act Might Be Dead, But These Kids' Hopes Are Not

They are American in everything but name. They can go to college in Texas and improve themselves. Doesn't matter. At the end of the day, they're just illegal immigrants without social security numbers or futures.

Immigration: Cubans Enter U.S. at Texas-Mexico Border

Anthony Bourdain, Illegal Immigrants and Sylvia's Enchilada Kitchen

Mexican-American Culture

Swift Meatpacking Plant and Illegal Immigrants

Swift & Company pitted employee against employee when it replaced injured workers with illegal immigrants

Online Fun

You, too, can patrol our borders

Why do Mexicans Worship Che Guevara More Than Argentines Do?

The Mexican replies

Letters to the Editor

At the Ready

The Minutemen have come to Texas

Food Fight Hiccup

Will four felonies spoil Four Families' Hobby deal?

Paying the Price

Hospital district officials wanted a simple one-sentence policy on immigrant health care. What they got instead was a criminal probe and plenty of politics.

The Bored Patrol

Border Patrol agents in South Texas contend they are getting paid to stay put as illegal immigrants go around them. Is this how the much-hyped crackdown along the Rio Grande is supposed to work?

Tresspassers Will Be Prosecuted

Ranch Rescue's Jack Foote swears he just wants to mend fences. Is pseudomilitary secrecy, right-wing rhetoric and an armed vigilante militia the best way?

Rejection Slips

The INS defends our borders and deports immigrant criminals. Sometimes, though, in its zeal, it tosses out perfectly law-abiding, hardworking people too.

Borderline Bond

Local judges go anti-immigrant in bail policies

Child Trek

The devastation of Hurricane Mitch propelled thousands across our southern border in search of new lives in America. And those were just the kids.

Deporting Disparities

Immigration law divides Central Americans

The Proposition

In Houston, illegal immigrants wait to see what hand California's Proposition 187 has dealt them