UPDATE: Wednesday night, the City of Grand Prairie issued the following statement to the media: “After further review and in the best interest of the City of Grand Prairie, the June 1 Eid event at Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark has been canceled.”

(What follows is our original report explaining the controversy):

A private pool party at a publicly-owned waterpark to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid has led the Texas Governor’s Office to threaten to claw back more than half a million dollars in state grants to the City of Grand Prairie unless it is canceled.

Although this same private event, “DFW Epic Eid at Epic Waterpark,” has been held in years past without much controversy, a flyer for this year’s event advertising it as “Closed to the Public-Muslims Only” went viral on social media, drawing the ire of Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

Despite the Governor’s threat to pull $530,000 in state grants unless the city cancels the event and “commit(s) to never allowing something like it again,” Grand Prairie does not appear inclined to fulfill the Governor’s demands.

The city responded with a statement noting that “DFW Epic Eid at Epic Waterpark” is a private event and that “like other City-owned facilities, it is available for rental by individuals and organizations.”

Event organizer, Dr. Aminah Knight, issued a statement that “In response to feedback, we have updated our materials to clearly reflect that this is a modest dress-only event, centered around a respectful and family-friendly environment. So if you are a friend of a different faith who wants to celebrate the Eid holiday with us, and adhere to the modest dress code … this event is FOR YOU TOO!”

The flyer no longer refers to DFW Epic Eid as “For Muslims Only” and now includes a statement reading “Come and celebrate Eid with us! All are welcome.”

The demand letter that the Governor’s office sent to the City of Grand Prairie notes the changes to the flyer, and is not satisfied by them, saying: “This event purports to be public-facing and discriminatory at the same time.”

The demand letter from the Governor’s Office notes that the pool party’s website states that “Attendees of all ages are expected to dress in accordance with Islamic values” and includes pictures of “burkinis” for women and long shorts and modest T-shirts for men.

Event organizer Dr. Aminah Knight told Dallas television station KXAS that because of “some online statements, there will be extra security on the day of the event.”

However, as noted above, the City of Grand Prairie capitulated to the Governor’s demand and canceled the event late Wednesday night. Dr Knight issued the following statement to Dallas television station WFAA:

"I’m sad. I’m sad that something that was being done with such good intention, just for joy, has been turned into something that it’s not," she said. "God knows I was just trying to plan something for my community within my community just like I did last year – why it turned into this, I don’t know."

Do you support Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s demand that the City of Grand Prairie cancel the “DFW Epic Eid” event?

Share your thoughts in the comments to this story!

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

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(I am republishing this article on Cinco de Mayo in honor of pioneer border people whose story is left out of far too many accounts of Texas History).

Legends are a fickle thing. Some - like the legends of the Texas Rangers - (the lawmen, not the baseball team) grow and endure. They are celebrated in books and movies and are the subject of tales passed from one generation to another.

Others endure but are recounted in whispers - if at all.

Such is the case of Los Kineños - the most important cowboys in Texas history that most have never heard of. It is more likely you’ve heard of the vast real estate they tamed - The King Ranch - the largest in the United States - occupying about 825,000 acres in South Texas.

The story of the Kineños (Spanish for King’s people) begins in 1854, a year after the King Ranch’s namesake - Captain Richard King - bought the first tract of land along the only body of water in South Texas between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River, 150 miles to the north: The Santa Gertrudis Creek.

King needed livestock for the 15,500-acre Spanish Land Grant he purchased (The Rincón de Santa Gertrudis). So he traveled 240 miles south to a ranching community in Northern Mexico (Cruillas, Tamaulipas) suffering from a severe drought. The townspeople were not only willing to agree to sell him their entire herd, but also to accompany the cattle back to his ranch in exchange for pledges of food, shelter, and income.

Once on the King Ranch, the former townspeople of Cruillas became known as Los Kineños. The Kineños were already experienced horsemen and cattlemen when they arrived at the King Ranch, and their knowledge about tending to a herd in the austere environment of what was then known as El Desierto de los Muertos - the Desert of the Dead - allowed their enterprise to thrive where few others had before.

Among the Kineños were expert cowboys, cooks, weavers of saddle blankets, and leather workers who crafted saddles for the ranch (and whose handiwork is still much sought after today).

I lived in the late 1950s to the early 1980s in Kingsville, Texas, headquarters and namesake of the King Ranch. The ranch and its Kineños were ever-present then, less so now (although their history, businesses, and economic impact still loom large).

A lot of what I took for granted then is gone now: fleets of trucks displaying the ranch brand whose many occupants were conducting business in town - buying provisions for the ranch, working at ranch-owned media enterprises (a newspaper & radio station), a lumberyard, a bank, and a John Deere dealership in a neighboring city. Only the John Deere dealership has survived as part of the King Ranch Corporation. The bank also endures - but it is no longer owned by the ranch family that founded it.

The Kineños and their families were familiar faces and names around town and in my classrooms (despite the fact that the ranch operated its own school districts for Kineño children who lived on ranch property).

There was the Maldonado family, related to Beto and Librado Maldonado - “cattle whisperers” who mastered the “showing” of thousand-pound-plus King Ranch livestock from the annual King Ranch auctions in Kingsville to a Chicago television studio to the Dallas–Fort Worth airport. They even boarded a plane with the cattle en route to the International Fair in Casablanca, Morocco, where they introduced the King-Ranch-bred Santa Gertrudis cattle to the African continent.

Or the Villas - whose forebearer, Faustino Villa, worked with Captain King on the Rio Grande before following him to the Santa Gertrudis ranch. Villa lived to be 118 and rode horseback until two weeks before his death.

Or the Cavazos family -descendants of the man awarded the original Spanish grant that includes the southern divisions of the King Ranch. One went on to become the foreman of the King Ranch Laureles Division and County Commissioner. Another went on to become President of Texas Tech University & U.S. Secretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush - the first Hispanic to become a cabinet member, despite being a member of President Bush’s opposing party (Democrats). A third went on to become a decorated soldier, general, and namesake of Fort Cavazos (formerly, and once again, Fort Hood).

Or the Muñoz family, who raised a son on the ranch who became the first elected Hispanic Sheriff of their county, as well as the first Hispanic Executive Director of Texas Governor Ann Richards’ Criminal Justice Division, and the first Hispanic to serve as Executive Director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

I could (and should) go on—but hopefully I have conveyed how the Kineños and their families became ingrained in King Ranch and Kingsville lore, and in the greater community that grew up around them.

Where once hundreds of Kineños tended the cattle, now there are dozens. A helicopter now takes half a day to gather a pasture that once took 30 kineños two days. Many descendants of the original Kineños now live in town rather than on the ranch (though some still live in modest houses there, carrying on the kineño tradition as part of a diminished but still important workforce).

For me, the saddest part about their history is how poorly their story was taught in Kingsville schools - and how I have had to learn about their contributions in the years since I left that part of the state. I would like to report that their stories are now part of Texas History curricula in Texas Primary, Secondary, and University classes --- but sadly, I have not seen evidence of that. -Feel free to correct me if that has changed.

In any case, I hope this story has introduced you to an often-ignored group of people in Texas history who I am proud to call my neighbors and friends.

Are you interested in more stories like this about US Border Hispanic Heritage?

I recommend the following stories from the “Culture & History” section of US Border News:

• The Healer: Legacy of Don Pedro Jaramillo in South Texas

People still seek his blessing 115 years after his death.

• I knew Fort Cavazos’ Namesake - I wish you could have met him

General Richard Cavazos posthumously earned the Medal of Honor

• Tejano Border Culture: Growing Up in South Texas

(Also a warning about “Mexican Pickles” & “Mexican Ketchup”)

• Flaco Jiménez Passes: The Day “La Música” Died

Six-time Grammy Winner Remembered

• The Election That Made History in my Small South Texas Town

Proof that barriers are made to be broken.

¡Abrazos y feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Jack Beavers

Add us a preferred Google source!

(This article is published just ahead of Cinco de Mayo in honor of a pioneer border woman whose story is left out of far too many accounts of Texas History).

Jovita Idár is likely the bravest Texas woman you’ve never heard of.

She was born in Laredo in 1885, one of eight children of Nicasio Idár, the publisher of La Crónica. Idár grew up in an atmosphere where the plight of the Mexican-American community was consistently discussed - at the family dinner table and at the family business.

She set out to be a teacher in the nearby community of Los Ojuelos, only to find the segregated Mexican-American school lacking funding for essentials like books, paper, and pencils. Some students had no place to sit but on the floor.

Idár was determined to change things for the better for Mexican-Americans in Texas and concluded she could best do that by joining the family’s newspaper.

La Crónica often railed against inequality and discrimination experienced by Mexican-Americans in turn-of-the-century South Texas. Many of those articles were authored by Jovita Idár, albeit under various pen names.

Jovita Idár wrote about equal rights for women, in addition to exposés about the poor living and working conditions faced by Mexican-Americans in South Texas.

In 1911, the Idár family organized El Primer Congreso Mexicanista to discuss Mexican-American Civil Rights in Laredo. Jovita Idár also co-founded La Liga Femenil Mexicanista (the League of Mexican Women). La Liga held study sessions for women in both Laredo and Nuevo Laredo and opened free bilingual schools on both sides of the border.

This was also the time of the Mexican Revolution. Idár joined La Cruz Blanca (The White Cross). Idár recruited Mexican-American women to cross the border as volunteer nurses in support of the revolutionary army.

Jovita Idár began writing for the newspaper El Progreso (The Progress) following her return to Texas from Mexico. After the newspaper published an editorial criticizing President Woodrow Wilson for sending U.S. troops to Veracruz, the Governor of Texas dispatched Texas Rangers to Laredo with orders to shut down the newspaper.

The rangers were met at the door of El Progreso by Jovita Idár, who physically blocked their entry. The rangers retreated - only to return when she was out of the office and destroyed the newspaper’s printing press as well as ransacked its newsroom.

Undaunted, Idár returned to her family’s newspaper and became editor and senior writer at La Crónica upon the death of her father in 1914. She founded another newspaper, Evolución, two years later, which she ran until 1920, when it was turned over to her brothers.

Jovita Idár moved to San Antonio in 1921, where she founded a free kindergarten, volunteered in a hospital as an interpreter, and returned to her journalistic roots by co-editing El Heraldo Cristiano in 1940. She passed away there at sixty years of age in 1946.

In the decades that followed her death, Idár’s story has not often been retold. But there are attempts to right that wrong.

In 2020, the city of Laredo renamed a 69-acre park in honor of Jovita Idár, and the renegade newspaper she bodily protected from the Texas Rangers.

Idár's memory is further honored by the U.S. Mint, which struck a coin featuring her image. The Jovita Idár Quarter is the ninth coin in the mint's American Women Quarters Program.

Are you interested in more stories like this about US Border Hispanic Heritage?

I recommend the following stories from the “Culture & History” section of US Border News:

• The Healer: Legacy of Don Pedro Jaramillo in South Texas

People still seek his blessing 115 years after his death.

• I knew Fort Cavazos’ Namesake - I wish you could have met him

General Richard Cavazos has been posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor

• Tejano Border Culture: Growing Up in South Texas

(Also a warning about “Mexican Pickles” & “Mexican Ketchup”)

• Flaco Jiménez Passes: The Day “La Música” Died

Six-time Grammy Winner Remembered

• The Election That Made History in my Small South Texas Town

Proof that barriers are made to be broken.

¡Abrazos y feliz Cinco de Mayo mañana!

Jack Beavers

Add us a preferred Google source!

The resolution of a record-breaking government shutdown, the US indictment of the sitting Governor of a Mexican State, and a surge of Federal Agents to Laredo, Texas, were the primary focus of U.S. border security and immigration news during the week of April 26–May 2, 2026.

End of DHS Shutdown

On April 30, 2026, President Trump signed a bill to end a 76-day partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

• Funding Split: The legislation restored funding to most DHS agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which had reportedly lost over 1,100 officers during the standoff.

• Enforcement Carve-out: Notably, the bill did not include funding for federal immigration enforcement operations, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

• Reconciliation Strategy: The Trump Administration hopes to fund ICE and CBP instead through a reconciliation process, a strategy designed to bypass a Democratic filibuster and secure long-term funding through 2029 with only Republican votes.

US Indictment Rocks Mexican Government

On Wednesday, April 29, 2026, a US Federal Grand Jury indicted a Mexican Governor and nine other current and former Mexican Officials for allegedly accepting bribes and political support from leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, which imports large amounts of drugs into the United States.

• The Governor: Sinaloan Governor Rubén Rocha Moya - a key member of Mexico’s ruling “Morena” party - is at the center of the indictment.

• The President: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is seeking "irrefutable evidence" to back the U.S. charges against Governor Rocha Moya before allowing him to be extradited to the U.S.

• The Attorney General: A spokesperson for Mexico’s Attorney General said that no extradition will be granted without sufficient evidence, and announced an independent investigation into the case.

• Elsewhere in Mexico: A wave of cartel violence, unleashed after the arrest of a cartel leader, resulted in a warning against travel from Texas (especially from McAllen) to Reynosa, Mexico, during the past week.

Operational Updates at the Border

• Texas Deployment: Approximately 200 Border Patrol agents, including members of the elite BORTAC unit, were deployed to Laredo, Texas, to address a spike in illegal crossings.

• Record-Low Apprehensions: Despite the surge in Laredo, overall migrant apprehensions for fiscal year 2026 remained at historic lows, with some sectors reporting their lowest levels since 1967.

• Drug Seizures: CBP officers reported major narcotics interceptions during the week, including $8.1 million worth of methamphetamine at the Pharr International Bridge, $2.8 million in cocaine and meth at the Eagle Pass Port of Entry, and nearly $2.8 million in fentanyl and meth at the San Ysidro Port of Entry

Travel Bans & Background Checks

• Travel Ban Blocked: A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday determined that President Trump’s halt on processing immigration applications for citizens of countries listed under his travel ban was unlawful, granting an injunction on a policy she determined was unfairly leaving thousands in limbo.

• Enhanced FBI Checks: On Monday, April 27, 2026, The USCIS began receiving enhanced criminal history record information (CHRI) for all fingerprint-based background checks. This includes mandatory secondary FBI screenings for applications for asylum, green cards, and naturalization.

FINALLY, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

(Stories covered by US Border News during the past week)

• 80+ Illegal Aliens caught by US authorities at sea so far this month

Many had criminal records

• $72+ Million in Cocaine seized by US Coast Guard & Navy

In Caribbean & Pacific Oceans

• ICE immigration tactics were first tried in Arizona

By “America’s Toughest Sheriff”

• US Warns Against Travel to Reynosa, Mexico

Wave of Cartel Violence Reported

• Border Patrol Answers Cartel Human Smuggling Surge

Hundreds of agents head to Laredo

• Mexican Governor Faces US Drug Charges

Other Mexican Officials Also Indicted

• ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! Speedy Gonzales returns to the silver screen

The “Fastest Mouse in Mexico’s” comeback story

I am committed to delivering a weekly newsletter that is not only educational and insightful but also engaging and easy to digest in five minutes or less.

(How am I doing? Let me know in the comments!)

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

Add us a preferred Google source!

We are republishing it in the US Border News “Culture & History” section as part of our commitment to bringing you views from diverse voices on border issues.

“¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!”

Meaning “hurry up, let’s go,” the trademark slogan of Speedy Gonzales was, for generations of children, the first Spanish words they learned.

But by the 1980s, ABC had pulled his cartoons due to concerns that his dress, accent, and characters like his cousin, Slowpoke Rodriguez, were insensitive toward Mexicans and Mexican Americans. The Cartoon Network followed suit in 1999.

I’ve studied and written about the history of animation, including how characters have been received around the world. Though rooted in a well-intentioned effort at cultural sensitivity, taking Speedy Gonzales off the air was a step too far for many viewers. He was one of the few cartoon characters rooted in Mexican identity, and he’d become a cultural icon across all of Latin America. The ensuing uproar in the wake of his cancellation prompted the Cartoon Network to reinstate the cartoon mouse in 2002.

With Warner Bros. greenlighting a new Speedy Gonzales movie in January 2026, the character’s redemption arc appears complete.

A speedy rise to stardom

“The fastest mouse in all of Mexico” first appeared in the 1953 animated short “Cat-Tails for Two.”

He was redesigned with his iconic yellow sombrero and red kerchief when he starred in his eponymous 1955 film, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short.

The short film features the general framework for future plots: Speedy helps members of his border community – a place inspired by Ciudad Juárez, just south of El Paso, Texas – evade the conniving Sylvester the Cat.

It opens with a town of starving mice looking longingly at the AJAX cheese factory through a fence, establishing an “international border.” They try to determine who will try to outrun Sylvester, the factory’s guard. One of the mice says that his sister is friends with Speedy Gonzales. (Another pipes in that Speedy is friends with everybody’s sister, signaling Speedy as something of a Don Juan.) After they call on Speedy, he uses his speed and smarts to outrun and outwit Sylvester.

The basic premise also appears in a number of cartoons, from Tom and Jerry to Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote: An antagonist is consistently thwarted by a clever protagonist who avoids increasingly complicated traps and attempts at capture.

Speedy Gonzales is unique, though, in that he was the first cartoon star to be from a Latin American country.

In the 1940s, with the European and Asian markets cut off due to World War II, Disney had turned to the Latin American market. The studio produced “Saludos Amigos” in 1942 and “The Three Caballeros” in 1944 to abide by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, which aimed to leverage diplomacy, trade, and cultural exchange to improve relations with Latin America.

Speedy ended up appearing in 45 theatrical shorts. In 1969, Warner Bros. shut down its animation studio, but the character lived on in Saturday morning cartoon anthologies like “The Bugs Bunny Show,” which repackaged older cartoons for younger audiences.

Animation’s racial reckoning

The Cartoon Network pulled Speedy Gonzales from the air at a time when networks and studios were starting to reassess animated characters from earlier eras.

Many early cartoon characters, including Mickey Mouse, had been modeled after blackface minstrel characters. Warner Bros.‘ first star, Bosko, was originally patented as “Negro Boy.”

Since racist tropes were ubiquitous in early-20th-century animation, films, and shorts like Disney’s “Dumbo,” “Mickey’s Mellerdrammer,” or Warner Bros.’ “All This and Rabbit Stew” were either pulled, edited, or updated to feature a content warning.

But after The Cartoon Network pulled Speedy Gonzales from the air in 1999, there was unexpected pushback from the Hispanic American community and the character’s Latin American fans. Groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States, declared Speedy a cultural icon and called for his cartoons to return to the air.

Back when Speedy Gonzales was first introduced to audiences, Hollywood had been filming more movies in Mexico and at the U.S.-Mexico border. However, most of these films depicted Latinos as either incompetent or villains.

In this regard, Speedy stood out. Though the character’s English speech and accent reflected stereotypes – and he was voiced by a white actor, Mel Blanc – the character was ultimately a clever, quick-witted, and good-natured protagonist. And the Spanish dubbing of his cartoons in Latin America had removed the stereotypical accent altogether.

Let the people decide

The trajectory of Speedy Gonzales resembles that of another controversial cartoon character: Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from “The Simpsons.”

An Indian immigrant who earned his Ph.D. in computer science in his home country, Apu becomes the manager of a convenience store in the U.S.

Some critics viewed Apu’s depiction as problematic; voiced by a white actor, Hank Azaria, Apu’s exaggerated Indian-American accent and catchphrase – “Thank you, come again” – was routinely mimicked and mocked by viewers of the show. Others, however, saw Apu as the embodiment of the American Dream: He was intelligent, hardworking and morally grounded.

Cultural theorists like Jacques Derrida and Stuart Hall have written about the complexities of how audiences understand – and either resist or embrace – what they read and watch. They ultimately argue that viewers and readers often interpret media however they see fit, regardless of the creators’ intent. For example, many minority groups who are underrepresented or misrepresented in popular culture will nonetheless find their own meaning and inspiration in characters, even if those characters weren’t supposed to represent those groups in the first place.

This happened with “The Goofy Movie.” Some audiences went on to describe the 1995 film as Disney’s first “Black” animated feature, despite the fact that the characters’ race is never mentioned. There were hints, of course: Black R&B singer Tevin Campbell played the movie’s fictional pop star, Powerline, and the themes of fatherhood and generational tensions eerily echo those in the play “Fences,” written by Black playwright August Wilson.

Of course, in the case of a character like Speedy Gonzales, depictions can become more nuanced as cultural norms and sensitivities change. Jorge R. Gutiérrez is set to direct the animated feature. If his work on films like “The Book of Life” is any indication, he’ll be well-equipped to bring cultural awareness to the animated feature – even if Speedy continues to sport his big, floppy sombrero.

This article is republished by US Border News from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by Jared Bahir Browsh, University of Colorado Boulder.

Do you think “Speedy Gonzales” is an insensitive racial stereotype or a harmless cartoon character?

Share your thoughts in the comments to this story!

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

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The US Coast Guard recently offloaded more than $72 million in cocaine in Miami Beach and Port Everglades, Florida, that crews aboard its cutters and a US Navy Littoral Combat Ship seized after intercepting five drug smuggling boats during patrols of both the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Oceans.

On Monday, April 27, 2026, Coast Guardsmen assigned to the Portsmouth, Virginia-based Cutter Escanaba offloaded approximately 7,050 pounds of cocaine worth more than $53 million at Port Everglades, Florida. The contraband resulted from the interdictions of cartel drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

On Thursday, April 23, 2026, the crew of the St. Petersburg, Florida-based Coast Guard Cutter Resolute brought 2,570 pounds of cocaine ashore worth more than $19.3 million and transferred six suspected drug smugglers to federal authorities at Base Miami Beach.

The seized drugs resulted from three drug boats intercepted in the Caribbean Sea by the crews of the Newport, Rhode Island-based Cutter Tahoma and the Naval Station Mayport, Florida-based USS Billings.

Meanwhile, the US military is also continuing to attack and sink other cartel smuggling boats encountered during anti-drug patrols.

On Friday, April 24, 2026, two suspected smugglers were killed while piloting a small boat in a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific after the US Southern Command determined they were engaged in narcotics smuggling there.

Should the US continue to use deadly force against suspected drug smugglers at sea?

Share your thoughts in the comments to this story!

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

Add us a preferred Google source!

The Governor of the Mexican State of Sinaloa and nine other current and former Mexican Officials have been charged by U.S. Federal Authorities in New York for allegedly conspiring with leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel to import large amounts of drugs into the United States in exchange for political support and bribes.

Sinaloan Governor Rubén Rocha Moya and the other defendants “have been most closely aligned with the faction of the Cartel run by the sons of Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, a/k/a “El Chapo,” the Cartel’s notorious former leader, who are themselves known collectively as the “Chapitos,” according to a US Justice Department news release issued on Wednesday, April 29, 2026.

“The Sinaloa Cartel, and other drug trafficking organizations like it, would not operate as freely or successfully without corrupt politicians and law enforcement officials on their payroll. The support of corrupt foreign officials for deadly trafficking of drugs must end. Let these charges send a clear message to all officials around the globe who work with narco-traffickers: no matter your title or position, we are committed to bringing you to justice.” - U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton

Governor Rocha Moya took to x.com to declare his innocence as well as to call the charges against him “slander” and a “perverse strategy” to undermine Mexico’s national sovereignty:

The US Ambassador to Mexico tried to tamp down suggestions that the US charges against the Governor and other Mexican officials might damage relations between the countries by issuing a statement declaring that “corruption that enables organized crime … harms both our countries.”

Other current Mexican officials named in the indictment alongside the Governor of Sinaloa include a Mexican Senator from Sinaloa, the Deputy Attorney General for the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office, and the Mayor of Culiacán (the State Capital of Sinaloa).

“The Sinaloa Cartel is not just trafficking deadly drugs; it is a designated terrorist organization that relies on corruption and bribery to drive violence and profit.” - DEA Administrator Terrance Cole.

Others charged include former high-level law enforcement officers of Sinaloa and Culiacán. An ex-commander in the Culiacán Municipal Police has also been charged in the kidnappings of a DEA source and the source’s relatives (one of them a 13-year-old boy) that resulted in their deaths.

Do you think these indictments will damage US-Mexican government relations?

Share your thoughts in the comments to this story!

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

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The US Border Patrol is “surging” a large number of agents to its Laredo, Texas sector in response to a recent surge in cartel human smuggling activity there. Both NewsNation and The Daily Wire are reporting the surge will consist of “at least 200 agents,” with The Daily Wire’s Jennie Taer reporting the agents “are being pulled for 30-day volunteer duties to support colleagues in Laredo, Texas, who are trying to address a surge in “gotaways,” while NewsNation’s Ali Bradley reports her “sources say it’s because it is the busiest sector right now.”

“Everyone from across the country is getting sent there,” one Border Patrol source told The Daily Wire.

Here’s a look at what Laredo Sector agents have encountered in recent days:

CBP Agents intercepted almost two dozen illegal aliens packed inside the sleeper compartment of the cab of a truck crossing into Texas.

CBP agents and Laredo PD Officers stopped the human smuggler on Interstate 35 and discovered 22 illegal aliens:

• 19 from Mexico

• 1 from Guatemala

• 2 unaccompanied minors from Mexico.

The driver, a U.S. citizen, is facing alien smuggling charges.

Also, in recent days, Laredo Border Patrol Agents found ten illegal aliens crammed inside the cab of yet another semi-truck driven by a human smuggler attempting to drive through one of their checkpoints:

• One 13-year-old was locked in a closet compartment of a semi.

• A pregnant woman was hidden in the back of the sleeper.

• Eight other illegal aliens were hiding under mattresses and in compartments.

And, in yet another unsuccessful attempt to smuggle illegal aliens through a Laredo checkpoint, a K9 alerted his Border Patrol handler that something was suspicious about a box truck a driver told them was loaded with “car parts.

Using bold cutters to break into the cargo compartment, instead of “parts,” agents found seven illegal aliens hiding behind a mattress. They were deported back to Mexico.

The driver, a U.S. citizen and previously convicted felon, faces alien smuggling charges.

Elsewhere in Laredo, Border Patrol Agents also recently busted a “stash house,” where they discovered 17 aliens recently brought across the border by one of the cartels awaiting transportation deeper into the state, consisting of:

• 13 Mexican nationals

• 2 Mexican juveniles

• 1 Nicaraguan

• 1 Salvadoran

  Do you think a “surge” of US Border Patrol Agents will stem this cartel human smuggling surge in Laredo?

  Share your thoughts in the comments to this story!

  Abrazos,

  Jack Beavers

  

  

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U.S. government employees have been ordered to avoid the greater Reynosa, Mexico area, and U.S. citizens are advised by the U.S. Consulate in Matamoros not to cross over from Texas into Reynosa across from McAllen, Texas, because a wave of cartel violence sparked by the arrest of a local cartel leader on Monday, April 27, 2026.

“U.S. Consulate Matamoros has received reports of violent criminal activity, including roadblocks in Reynosa,” a US State Department statement said.

Businesses were set afire, and stolen trucks blocked area highways in response to the arrest of a man known locally as “El Metro 9,” the leader of the "Los Metros" faction of the Gulf Cartel (CDG).

This latest warning against travel to Reynosa follows a “Level 4 - Do Not Travel” advisory that has been issued for some time to U.S. residents by the State Department for the entire state of Tamaulipas “due to terrorism, crime, and kidnapping.”

The State Department advises US residents to:

• Avoid the greater Reynosa area

• Maintain a high level of vigilance and keep a low profile

• Monitor local media for updates

• Be aware of your surroundings

• Notify friends and family of your safety

• Review your personal security plans and follow the instructions of local authorities

• Call 911 if you need emergency assistance

Who to contact if you need assistance:

• Contact Form

• From Mexico: 55 8526 2561

• From the United States: +1-844-528-6611

• Department of State – Consular Affairs: +1-888-407-4747 or +1-201-501-4444

How concerned are you about cartel violence across the border from Texas or the dangers of traveling into Mexico?

Share your thoughts in the comments to this story!

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

Add us a preferred Google source!

We are re-publishing it on US Border News as part of our commitment to bringing you coverage from diverse voices on important border issues.

For the past 13 years, Maricopa County in Arizona has attempted to reform its sheriff’s department after Joe Arpaio made it into a national flash point for extreme immigration tactics. After a legal immigrant sued Arpaio and the county Sheriff’s Office, a federal district court ruled in 2015 that Arpaio and his deputies relied on racial profiling to target Latinos.

Arpaio was at the center of that suit. From 2006 to 2017, he implemented his own immigration detention program, instructing deputies to detain anyone who did not carry a valid identification and did not speak English. One U.S. Department of Justice attorney characterized Arpaio as overseeing “the worst pattern of racial profiling by a law enforcement agency in U.S. history.”

Federal oversight has since aimed to reform the sheriff’s department and improve trust with the county’s Latino residents, which had been destroyed under Arpaio’s tenure.

As a historian of U.S. immigration, I believe Arpaio’s immigration detention methods are clearly echoed in the hardline immigration policies devised by presidential aide Stephen Miller. That’s evident in actions by immigration agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection that have been described as inhumane by some lawmakers and civil rights groups.

A blueprint for ICE facilities

From his election as sheriff in 1993 until 2017, Arpaio made constant headlines for his creation of a tent jail and his heavy-handed immigration enforcement tactics.

Using surplus army tents from the Korean War to house up to 1,700 inmates, Arpaio built Tent City in August 1993 to address overcrowding in Phoenix jails. By the time the jail closed in 2017, his successor, Maricopa Sheriff Paul Penzone, estimated that running Tent City cost taxpayers US $8.5 million annually.

Tent City was initially used for detaining criminals, but after 2009, Arpaio used the facility for housing detained immigrants.

News reports said Arpaio forced inmates to wear pink underwear and often fed them expired food and undrinkable water. The tents did little to shield inmates from the Arizona desert, where temperatures rose to 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius) at times. Tent City stirred a national uproar.

Starting in 2006, Arpaio and Maricopa County sheriffs engaged in a pattern of “unlawful discriminatory police conduct directed at Hispanic persons,” according to U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Kappelhoff. During these operations, he directed deputies to detain people suspected of being undocumented immigrants without legal immigration authorization.

Arpaio’s deputies explicitly targeted Latino drivers in their traffic stops. A Department of Justice investigation concluded that Arpaio used race as a criterion for stopping and detaining Latino drivers. Legal U.S. residents and U.S. citizens were occasionally arrested in these sweeps.

Phoenix News-Times journalist Stephen Lemons, in January 2009, noted that, during operations, some Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies wore ski masks and carried assault rifles while conducting immigration sweeps.

Camp East Montana & Alligator Alcatraz

Tent City appears to be an early version of the detention facilities used by ICE today, where detainees have complained of squalid conditions and poor food.

ICE currently detains some 70,000 people in 224 detention centers nationwide.

Of those, two camps, Camp East Montana near El Paso, Texas, and Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, are eerily similar to Arpaio’s Tent City.

Camp East Montana is the most recent of these new facilities. Opened in August 2025, the 60-acre detention center has become one of the largest ICE facilities in the U.S., holding 5,000 detainees.

Like Arpaio’s Tent City, Camp East Montana was constructed with tents that offer little protection from the elements. The Washington Post reported in September that the facility’s poor food, shoddy living quarters, and exposure to the desert sun violated 60 federal regulations.

The cost of inhumane policies

During Arpaio’s tenure, his office faced 6,000 federal lawsuits.

Those included a $9 million payout to the parents of Charles Agster III, after a federal jury found Arpaio and jailhouse nurses negligent in his death. And they included a $2 million payout to the parents of Brian Crenshaw after the disabled man died following an altercation with a sheriff’s detention officer.

The most costly, though, was the 2013 ruling in Melendres v. Arpaio. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow found Arpaio guilty of racial profiling. The ruling placed Arpaio’s office under federal monitoring with orders to overhaul the department. As a result, Maricopa County residents have paid $323 million to reform the department.

Arpaio left office in January 2017. Months later, Tent City closed. After a failed attempt to run for U.S. Senate in 2018, Arpaio retired from politics.

But I believe that the resemblance between Arpaio’s fixation on immigration and Trump’s deportation campaign remains.

Since Trump’s second election, ICE and CBP agents have followed Arpaio’s playbook. Along with erecting tent jails for detaining immigrants, agents have used racial profiling during immigration raids. Consequently, hundreds of U.S. citizens have been detained during raids and protests.

On April 2, 2026, Judge Jennifer Thurston ruled that CBP agents violated court orders and “again detained people without reasonable suspicion” – tactics similar to those used by Arpaio.

Arpaio’s policies foreshadowed Trump’s deportation policy: one that uses racial profiling and shows little regard for human rights.

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in her dissent in Noem v. Vazquez-Perdomo in 2025, many Latinos now carry proof of citizenship out of fear of racial profiling.

In July 2017, a federal court found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt for violating a 2011 federal order to stop detaining people solely on suspicion of illegal immigration status.

A month later, before Arpaio’s sentencing, Trump pardoned Arpaio. He described the sheriff as a “great American patriot” who had “done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration.”

This analytical/opinion article is republished from the nonprofit, independent news organization The Conversation. It was written by Jonathan van Harmelen, of Oberlin College and Conservatory

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Jack Beavers

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Coast Guard crews and Federal Agents have been kept busy this month by human smugglers determined to bring illegal aliens to America’s shores. On Sunday, April 19, 2026, the Coast Guard Cutter Joseph Tezanos intercepted a dangerously overloaded small boat off the coast of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, with 21 illegal aliens aboard.

18 men and two women claimed to be from the Dominican Republic, while two men aboard said they were Haitians. One other person was found to have an active Puerto Rico Police arrest warrant and was taken into custody.

The illegal aliens were transferred to a Dominican Republic Navy vessel on Monday, April 20, 2026.

But the Coast Guard and Federal Officers have been even busier cracking down on Human Smuggling off the California Coast. On Monday, April 20, 2026, the Coast Guard Cutter Terrell Horne stopped a cabin cruiser off San Clemente Island with 18 illegal aliens, all from Mexico, aboard.

On April 18, 2026, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Florence Finch intercepted a small “panga” boat Southwest of Point Loma Near San Nicolas Island, overloaded with 29 illegal aliens, all from Mexico, aboard.

On Friday, April 17, 2026, Federal Agents aboard US Customs & Border Protection “Coastal Interceptor Vessels” converged on yet another suspicious boat near San Clemente Island. Their suspicions were confirmed when the “fishing party” aboard the boat was found to be 13 illegal aliens instead: 7 adult males, 5 adult females, and 1 accompanied juvenile female.

On Thursday, April 9, 2026, the Coast Guard Cutter Narwhal intercepted a boat near Point Loma, California, that watchstanders at the Joint Harbor Operations Center in San Diego had identified as suspicious, and found three illegal aliens (all from Mexico) aboard.

The Daily Caller, citing US Customs & Border Protection sources, reports that some of the aliens caught trying to illegally enter California this month “had rap sheets that included DUI, felony hit-and-run, making false police reports, drug possession, active warrants for resisting arrest, trespassing, burglary, possession of burglary tools, receiving stolen property, drug trafficking, aggravated assault with a weapon, and domestic violence.”

In response to all of this human smuggling activity, the US government is deploying surveillance buoy powered by artificial intelligence, like the one pictured above, in waters along the US border with Mexico off the California coast.

These “PowerBouys” (outfitted with solar panels and wind generators) contain cameras and other surveillance devices to alert the Coast Guard and Customs & Border Protection to human smuggling boats approaching and entering US waters.

UPDATE: The installation of the first “PowerBuoy” surveillance platform near San Diego has not (yet) deterred cartel human smugglers. On Monday, April 27, 2026, the Coast Guard reported apprehending five more illegal aliens aboard a 45-foot sailing boat at the entrance to San Diego Bay.

Share your thoughts in the comments to this story!

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Jack Beavers

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THE WEEK’S US BORDER NEWS IN BRIEF:

A major federal appeals court ruling blocking the Trump administration’s strict asylum bans, alongside ongoing legislative efforts in the Senate to fund immigration enforcement, were the primary focus of U.S. border security and immigration news during the week of April 19–25, 2026.

Asylum and Court Decisions

• Asylum Ban Blocked: A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on Friday, April 24, 2026, that the Trump administration’s “Day 1” proclamation (issued January 20, 2025), which suspended asylum access at the southern border, was unlawful.

• Legal Reasoning & Response: The court found that existing U.S. immigration laws guarantee the right to apply for asylum and that the president cannot unilaterally override this. The administration indicated its intent to challenge this ruling, as well as another ruling requiring them to restore parole status to migrants who entered through the Biden-era CBP One program.

• Texas SB 4 Ruling: On Thursday, April 23, 2026, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a lower court injunction, allowing Texas Senate Bill 4 to take effect. This law empowers state police to arrest individuals suspected of entering the country illegally, challenging the long-standing precedent that immigration law is solely a federal jurisdiction.

Border Security and Enforcement

• Continued Low Encounters: The Border Patrol continued to report historically low numbers of migrant encounters, with data up to early April showing the lowest numbers in decades, attributed to the severe restrictions on asylum. It is unclear how the court ruling above (should it stand) might impact that in the future.

• DHS Shutdown: The U.S. Senate advanced a $70 billion funding plan for ICE and Border Patrol through budget reconciliation on Thursday, April 23, 2026. This push occurred as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remained in a partial shutdown due to stalled negotiations over operational guardrails following controversial incidents.

Immigration Policy and Administration

• H-1B Visa Reform: House Republicans introduced the End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026 on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. The bill proposes a three-year moratorium on H-1B visas, reducing the annual cap from 65,000 to 25,000, and eliminating "dual intent," which currently allows visa holders to pursue permanent residency.

• H-1B Visa Fraud: USCIS continued to focus on fraud, with guilty pleas in H-1B visa fraud cases and the announcement of prosecutions for naturalization fraud during the week.

• Visa Restrictions Continue: Meanwhile, the State Department is continuing to enforce a “pause” on permanent visas for 75 countries, which began in early 2026, affecting almost half of all immigrant visas typically issued.

• New Travel Rules as World Cup Nears: Effective Thursday, April 23, 2026, the United States has implemented significantly tightened security measures for travelers entering under the Visa Waiver Program (ESTA), driven by security preparations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. New travel regulations include screening five years of social media activity.

Key Trends

• “Zero Releases”: DHS has claimed 11 consecutive months of “zero releases” at the southern border, indicating all apprehended migrants were either detained or removed.

• Legal vs. Illegal Immigration: Analysts noted that while illegal border crossings were very low, the administration had also significantly reduced legal immigration channels.

FINALLY, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

(Stories covered by US Border News during the past week)

• Coast Guard Seizes Cocaine Worth $28.7 Million

Through “Operation Pacific Viper”

• DHS waffles on “Warehouse Detention Centers”

One city cut off the water.

• Are US Strikes on “Narco Boats” Effective?

Smuggling routes disrupted; not destroyed

• Ex Border Town Official Busted For Drug Smuggling

10 cocaine bundles seized

PLUS:

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Luis Miguel Garduño, who, as recently as late 2025, served as a Director of Public Services in the Mexican City of Matamoros (across the Rio Grande from Brownsville), was arrested on Easter Sunday (April 5, 2026), while attempting to smuggle almost 11 kilos of cocaine through a South Texas Border Patrol Checkpoint.

After a Border Patrol dog alerted agents at the Javier Vega, Jr. Checkpoint on US Highway 77 in Sarita, Texas, a search of the SUV he was driving revealed a hidden compartment beneath the third row of seats.

Inside, agents found ten bundles containing 10.92 kilograms of cocaine.

According to a criminal complaint, Garduño told Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Agents that “he was directed to do the trip because of a debt that he owes (and when) asked if he knew what was in the vehicle … he advised that he believes it was drugs, but did not know what type.”

Garduño is facing federal charges of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance.

The case is raising eyebrows because of an arrest involving another Mexican official from the same area last year. On May 2, 2025, US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) officers stopped a Mexican couple attempting to drive across the Brownsville-Matamoros International Bridge into Mexico for a random search.

The Mexico City newspaper "El Universal" identified the woman involved in the case as an employee of the Attorney General's Office of the Mexican State of Tamaulipas.

The CBP Officers found bundles of US dollars (totaling $148,610) hidden inside the couple’s car. The driver was found to be carrying another $5,485 in cash. Officers found the woman was carrying even more money: $30,000 - again, all cash.

(It is a federal offense not to declare currency totaling $10,000 or more to a CBP officer upon entry or exit from the U.S. or to conceal it with intent to evade reporting requirements. Failure to declare may result in seizure of the currency and/or arrest. An individual may petition for the return of currency seized by CBP officers, but the petitioner must prove that the source and intended use of the currency were legitimate.)

In all, US Federal Agents seized $184,095.

Meanwhile, the ex-Matamoros city official arrested for smuggling cocaine earlier this month remains jailed in Corpus Christi awaiting trial.

How large a problem is cartel corruption of government officials along the Mexican border?

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Jack Beavers

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Relevant Fact: The US Army established the “Western Hemisphere Command” (USAWHC) last December, focused on the security of North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

Given that US Border News is publishing more articles about news from that space (well south of our Southern Borders), here is the question I am posing to our readers and subscribers (and any other interested Substackers) in the form of a poll:

Here’s an example of stories within that space we have published this year on US Border News:

• Are US Strikes on “Narco Boats” Effective?

Smuggling routes disrupted; not destroyed

• Coast Guard Seizes Cocaine Worth $28.7 Million

Through “Operation Pacific Viper”

• 120+ Aliens Apprehended at Sea

By US Since March 1

• Venezuelan President’s Arrest Rocks Some US Border Communities

US Border News Flash Analysis

The separate publication I am considering would allow for coverage of “migrant caravans” from Central America to Mexico; Cartel Activity deeper in Mexico, well South of the US Border; and Trans-National Criminal Activity in South America & the Caribbean.

Articles from that region would give you an “early warning” about issues that might cross over the US Border in the future, while allowing US Border News to focus on events closer to home.

You would be free to subscribe to both publications or to either, depending on your interests. (Or we could keep things as they are through this single news site).

Please feel free to participate in the poll above - and share your thoughts in our comment section for this article.

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

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The US attacks on suspected “narco-boats” have disrupted - but not destroyed Caribbean drug-smuggling routes from Central and South America to the US and Europe, an analysis by both InSight Crime and WOLA has determined.

(Insight Crime has a staff of about 50 investigators working across the Americas and Europe, including reporters with years of on-the-ground experience; investigators with graduate degrees in Latin America, citizen security, and conflict studies; and experts in design, translation, and data analysis.

WOLA is a leading research and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to advancing human rights, democracy, and social justice in the Americas.)

As of this month, those US military strikes have killed at least 80 people and destroyed at least 15 suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean since the US began the attacks in September of last year.

Insight Crime also notes that the disruption of those smuggling routes could be driving more cocaine trafficking from Venezuela into the Essequibo Territory of neighboring Guyana and Suriname.

Insight Crime also notes that “high-level traffickers rarely coordinate, much less pilot, the go-fast boats that transport drugs through the Caribbean. (Those involve) mid-level logistics networks contracted to move cocaine on a deal-by-deal basis. These groups recruit boat crews locally, often from local fishing communities.”

In other words, we are not killing drug kingpins, but low-level “mules” that are easily replaced. And so far, authorities in the Caribbean islands where these small boats often land aren’t seeing any evidence that the US strikes are discouraging those fishermen from making those far more lucrative drug runs.

A senior customs source in Trinidad and Tobago, speaking to InSight Crime on condition of anonymity, said that “overall flows remain steady,” adding drug shipments had been “diverted to less patrolled sea lanes, more isolated beaches, or via land transshipment points in small island nations.”

And even if the US strikes DID cut down on the number of go-fast boaters willing to risk their lives for a short smuggling run, Insight Crime notes that the drug organizations that use them can easily turn to “more discreet forms of transport, such as private yachts, which can crisscross Caribbean islands while blending in with tourism traffic.

Other alternatives to go-fast boats include fishing vessels and inter-island ferries that can hop between islands while carrying concealed cargo.”

As of Thursday, April 16, 2026, Insight Crime documented 52 strikes by the US military against suspected drug smuggling boats in both the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, resulting in the deaths of more than 175 people. The map below shows the locations of those strikes.

Meanwhile, those strikes continue. Since Insight Crime published that map, the US Southern Command announced another strike of a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean on Sunday, April 19, 2026, which killed three more people the Department of Defense characterized as ”narco-terrorists.”

However, a separate analysis by WOLA.org could find “no apparent impact” on the amount of cocaine being seized by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) since those boat strikes began:

And, in another sign that the risk of attacks is not discouraging operators of these “go-fast” boats from making those financially lucrative smuggling runs, authorities in the Dominican Republic report the recent seizure of 1.6 tons of cocaine aboard a 32-foot boat equipped with twin 250-horsepower outboard engines, multiple fuel tanks, and advanced communication technology smugglers abandoned on a beach there after fleeing a brief firefight with law-enforcement officers.

And, Costa Rica, this week, announced the seizure of a “go-fast” boat carrying 1,901 packages of cocaine along with the arrests of three smugglers.

Should the US continue to attack small smuggling boats in the Caribbean & Eastern Pacific?

Share your thoughts in the comments to this story!

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

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Some of the Trump administration’s controversial new warehouse immigration detention centers are getting scaled back and postponed as states and cities fight back, and new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin reviews actions taken by his ousted predecessor, Kristi Noem.

Some states and cities have seen more communication and compromise as Mullin takes over, and the Department of Homeland Security faces a continued funding shutdown that has reached 60 days.

That includes discussions about a proposed Arizona detention center, where DHS agreed to scale back the number of prisoners by two-thirds and pay a city for lost tax revenue, and a proposed center in Maryland with a similar offer from the department. A lawsuit is also holding up work on that detention center. And in Georgia, a small city cut off the water supply to a proposed immigrant holding site.

A plan to house up to 1,500 immigrants in Surprise, Arizona, starting as soon as May, was scaled back to 542 detainees starting in October at the earliest, and DHS agreed to pay the city $300,000 a year for lost property taxes. The department may also offer more to help cover any police costs after negotiations with DHS under Mullin.

“With the new leadership, there’s been a lot of communication,” Surprise Mayor Kevin Sartor told a local radio show April 15, a contrast to the “very frustrating” experience of how the city learned from news reports in January that DHS had purchased a 418,000-square-foot distribution center for $70 million.

“We do have a different leadership style,” Mullin said in a CNBC interview April 16, comparing himself to Noem. “We want to make sure people understand that we’re here working for the people, not against you.”

In Maryland, the new DHS administration has also offered a scale-back from 1,500 detainees to 542, in a Williamsport warehouse bought for $102 million in January. An April 15 court order keeps most work at the center paused as the state continues a lawsuit claiming “impacts on the environmental, economic, and public health and safety interests of the state.”

In Arizona, dozens of Democratic state lawmakers sent a letter in April asking the city of Surprise to “stop the facility from opening at all costs,” but Mayor Sartor has said he doesn’t see a legal basis for a lawsuit. The mayor’s office is nonpartisan, but Republicans predominate among registered voters in the city by almost 2-1 over Democrats.

Communities across the country are facing the results of a massive detention expansion fueled in large part by the record $45 billion approved for increased immigration detention by Congress last summer.

Other state and local action on the plan to repurpose warehouses for detention centers includes a Kansas City, Missouri, ban on nonmunicipal detention facilities passed in January, and developers halted the sale of a south Kansas City warehouse in February.

The owners of an Indiana warehouse sent a letter stating they weren’t in active negotiations for the site, which had been reported as a potential detention center and had drawn local opposition from the town of Merrillville. Democratic lawmakers in Florida opposed plans for a warehouse detention center near Orlando in February, while some Republican lawmakers supported it.

In Georgia, the city of Social Circle cut off water and sewer service for a $128.6 million warehouse proposed to hold 10,000 detainees, saying the town of 5,000 people lacked the capacity to serve it.

“The city’s infrastructure cannot accommodate this level of demand,” according to a February statement from the city, despite a “certainly creative” solution suggested by DHS to fill a water-supply cistern at times of low demand.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Do you support the conversion of warehouses into “immigration detention facilities”?

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Jack Beavers

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The crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tampa offloaded 3,825 pounds of cocaine worth more than $28.7 million on Thursday, April 16, 2026, in Miami. The seized contraband resulted from two interdictions of drug-smuggling boats in the international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean through “Operation Pacific Viper.”

Operation Pacific Viper is a counter-drug operation in the Eastern Pacific, a primary corridor for narcotics smuggling from Central and South America. The Coast Guard has surged cutters, aircraft, and tactical teams to interdict, seize, and disrupt the flow of cocaine and other illicit drugs

Recent operations highlighted the impact of “Operation Pacific Viper”, including record-setting interdictions. In February, the Coast Guard marked a significant achievement by seizing 200,000 pounds of cocaine, underscoring the sustained effectiveness of Operation Pacific Viper. Since launching this operation in early August, the Coast Guard has seized over 215,000 pounds of cocaine and apprehended 160 suspected narco-traffickers.

Through “Operation Pacific Viper, the US Coast Guard targets Mexican, Central & South American Cartels, cutting off drug and human smugglers before they reach the US West Coast.” 80% of interdictions of U.S.-bound drugs occur at sea.

Do you think “Operation Pacific Viper” is inflicting heavy damage to cartel cocaine smuggling operations?

Share your thoughts in the comments to this article.

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

Key developments in immigration and border security news during the past week included legislative action on Temporary Protected Status for Haitian migrants, and the resignation of the Director of ICE, as the numbers of those illegally crossing the border continue to drop.

Border Enforcement & Migrant Data

• Historic Lows in Migrant Encounters: As of April 17, data indicated that migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border are on track to make 2026 the lowest year for encounters since 1967 (the chart below shows the dramatic drop):

  

• Family Apprehensions Plunge: The current immigration crackdown has led to a significant change in the demographic of migrant arrivals, with families and children making up the smallest proportion of apprehended individuals since 2012, as the ability to seek asylum at the border has been largely eliminated.

  

• Spring Surge Coming?: Despite lower migrant numbers, five Border Patrol Sectors, including Del Rio and Tucson, reported significant (over 25%) increases in border-wide apprehensions from February to March, suggesting a potential spring uptick.

• Venezuelan Deportations Continue: The most recent deportation flight to Venezuela, on April 15, 2026, had 316 people aboard. Since the Trump administration began, it has sent over 20,000 people to Caracas.

• San Ysidro Drug Seizure: On April 16, CBP officers at the San Ysidro, California, Port of Entry seized over 60 pounds of cocaine, valued at more than $1.15 million, from a “trusted traveler”.

• Hidalgo Drug Seizure: CBP continued high-volume drug seizures, including over $1 million in cocaine found hidden in the seats of a passenger bus at the Hidalgo, Texas, International Bridge.

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Resignation & Legislation

• Resignation Amid Shutdown: The ICE director resigned during a long-running, partial DHS funding shutdown, which has left thousands of personnel without pay while continuing enforcement operations.

• Haitian TPS Legislation: On April 16, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1689, which requires the DHS Secretary to designate Haiti for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) through at least April 2029, despite opposition from the Republican majority leadership.

• Visa Updates: The April 2026 Visa Bulletin was released, showing forward movement in certain employment-based categories, yet with significantly tighter scrutiny on vetting and interview processes, including social media checks.

FINALLY, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

(Stories covered by US Border News during the past week)

• US: Casino Near Texas Border is a Cartel Front

Americans warned to stay away

• ICE’d Out?

Embattled Agency Director Resigns

• Many migrants sent to “Blue Cities” have returned to US Border States

Following earlier Border Surge

I am committed to delivering a weekly newsletter that is not only educational and insightful but also engaging and easy to digest in five minutes or less.

(How am I doing? Let me know in the comments!)

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

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Todd Lyons’ career at US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) was on an upward trajectory from the time he joined the agency as an Immigration Enforcement Agent in Dallas in 2007 through March 9, 2025, when he was named Acting Director of the agency by President Trump.

Unfortunately (for him), his career ascent coincided with Stephen Miller, Corey Lewandowski, and Kristi Noem’s co-option of his agency.

Although President Trump promised to arrest “the worst of the worst” during the campaign, once in office, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and (then) Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and her “Chief of Staff” Corey Lewandowski, demanded that ICE should instead generate arrests of 3,000 people a day, no matter if they had no criminal records (other than immigration violations) with controversial Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino named as “Commander at Large” of their enforcement efforts.

A series of well-publicized raids directed against “blue” (Democratic) cities followed, resulting in the controversial shooting deaths of ICE protestors Rene Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

As a result, immigration (which had once been one of President Trump’s strengths in national polls) quickly shifted to a liability.

ICE Director Lyons efforts to rein in Bovino resulted in an email from Bovino stating, "Mr. Lyons said he was in charge, and I corrected him, saying I report to Corey Lewandowski."

Miller’s 10 AM daily conference calls with ICE officials are famous for destroying morale among ICE leaders:

“Miller came in there and eviscerated everyone. ‘You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders.’

“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?’” Forbes News reported the official recited.

As a result, in March 2026, Politico reported that Lyons was hospitalized in late 2025/early 2026 due to stress, with sources attributing this to the aggressive demands from Miller.

Which brings us where we are today. ICE Director Lyons will resign on May 31, 2026. He says he wants to spend more time with his family, particularly his sons.

Senator Markwayne Mullin is now the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski, and Gregory Bovino are gone (and soon, Todd Lyons will be as well). Stephen Miller remains in his position, free to continue to press his aggressive enforcement agenda.

However, The Wall Street Journal reported last month that President Trump wants to “lower the profile of his mass deportation effort.”

They said he wants voters to think the targets of these deportations are “bad guys,” not noncriminal undocumented residents. He wants less visibility for ICE raids in cities, fewer public confrontations with local officials, and less public talk about “mass deportations,” which, he now grasps, are hideously unpopular.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles now sees deportations as a liability for the midterms, per the report. If Trump sides with her on politics, it would be a sign of political panic and a rebuke to Miller, but we appear to be somewhere in between those two extremes at the moment.

However, this is decided, ICE Director Todd Lyons isn’t sticking around to see how it plays out.

Do you support Stephen Miller’s demands for 3,000 daily immigration arrests or Susie Wiles’ focus on migrants with previous criminal arrests?

Share your thoughts in the comments to this story!

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

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The millions of migrants who were released into the country during the immigration surge that began in 2021 and peaked in 2023 caused a political firestorm when Republican states transported them to Democratic cities. Now, according to a new analysis, many of them are back working in the states that expelled them.

Many of the migrants turned themselves in to immigration officials when they entered the United States illegally, but avoided immediate removal by claiming a “credible fear” of persecution or torture if they returned home, giving them the right to seek asylum. It can take years to receive an asylum hearing. Others seeking asylum arrived with appointments made through a government app or relied on temporary parole programs while pursuing legal status in court.

Now, amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, these migrants are under increasing pressure, threatened with arrest and detention even when they appear for their court dates. Currently, they can begin to work legally after waiting six months, but the Trump administration is seeking to extend the waiting period to one year.

A Stateline analysis of court records shows that the largest numbers of recent asylum-seekers are in New York, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Utah, all of which have populations that are at least 1% higher than they were in 2020 because of the new migrants. Also in the top 10: Texas, Connecticut, California, Illinois, and Colorado. Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas led the charge to transport migrants out of state. Stateline’s analysis counts only those migrants who are not being detained.

The country that is the single largest source of recent asylum-seeking migrants is Venezuela, with 363,000 as of February. The next largest is Mexico (251,000), followed by Guatemala (241,000), Honduras (240,000), and Colombia (235,000). But those nationwide numbers are scrambled in individual states: Ecuadorians predominate in five states, Nicaraguans in four, and Brazilians and Cubans in three each.

The influx of migrants that began escalating when President Joe Biden loosened immigration rules in January 2021 generated a political backlash that intensified after DeSantis and Abbott began busing and flying border migrants to Democratic-led cities, putting a significant strain on their finances. New York City, for example, spent a total of $8.13 billion on shelter and services for the more than 223,000 asylum-seekers and other migrants who arrived between the spring of 2022 and the fall of 2024.

Meanwhile, some established immigrant communities resented what they saw as lenient treatment of the newcomers.

Local news accounts reported anger over competition for jobs in Latino communities in New York City. But Ernesto Castañeda, director of American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, said interviews there showed more resentment over the aid that was offered to the new arrivals.

“For the first time in U.S. history, there were many big programs to temporarily house and feed the newcomers,” Castañeda said. “People (in New York City) talked about the food cards they got, or the free meals, or the hotel rooms, and that took a lot of the media attention locally.”

But many of the new immigrants also have provided much-needed labor, from the streets of New York City and its suburbs to the dairy farms of Idaho.

“All we can do is just work and hope for the best,” said a woman from Ecuador, who asked to be identified only as Rosa. Rosa works in a family food service business in suburban Spring Valley, New York, one of the top five areas in the country for the sheer number of migrants, with most coming from Ecuador, according to court records.

“It’s hard here, but in Ecuador it’s worse — there are gangs blackmailing you,” said another woman who works in a Queens store labeling packets of Ecuadorian herbs. She declined to identify herself.

In suburbs as well as cities, the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda has immigrants worried. About 22% of the newcomers around the country, in and out of detention, have orders of removal from immigration courts, meaning they could be arrested and summarily deported at any time.

“There were a lot of arrests right around here. People who did everything right got detained,” Rosa said in Spanish, glancing around nervously as she worked making traditional Ecuadorian dishes like corviches, fish fritters, and a fish and onion soup called encebollado.

Many of the new arrivals have stopped socializing and stay home when they’re not working, afraid to be caught up in raids that have swept thousands of them up into detention, according to interviews conducted in New York and the District of Columbia by the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies.

Even when much-hated Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was arrested in January and removed to the United States for trial, many Venezuelan asylum-seekers stayed home rather than risk being arrested at public celebrations (like the one in Florida pictured below).

Ecuadorians got less media attention than Venezuelans because they came to a more established community in New York, Castañeda said.

“(Ecuadorians) already had networks, so they were not staying in shelters. They were not in the streets,” he said. “They could work, and they were becoming part of the fabric of New York, but now they’re being deported by Trump because ICE knows who they are, where they live, and their status is very easy pickings. They’re low-hanging fruit.”

Many Venezuelans would like to go home but face even more chaos after the fall of Maduro, said Héctor Arguinzones, organizer of a Venezuelan immigrant group in New York City.

“Many of us fled Venezuela because our own neighbors were our persecutors,” said Arguinzones. “We’re not trying to, you know, sneak into the United States. A lot of us want to go back. We are full of hope. But we cannot think that this crisis in Venezuela will be solved in three months. We must be patient. What we really need is humanitarian treatment.”

Texas has ended up with the largest number of Venezuelans, an irony noted in a book written by the American University research team. After initially receiving aid in more sympathetic areas such as Colorado, New York City, and Washington, D.C., many of the Venezuelans traveled around the country looking for work, but trickled back to Texas, where jobs were available, and the cost of living was lower.

(Editor’s Note: For more perspectives about Venezuelan ties to Texas, we recommend reading our January 2026 article “Venezuelan President’s Arrest Rocks Some US Border Communities”).

Living in the U.S. with an immigration court date is a tenuous existence for people fleeing gangs and political oppression in South America and Central America. Fear of returning to a home country can be a valid legal reason to avoid deportation, but it requires legal help and doesn’t prevent detention and pressure to “self-deport.”

“Unfortunately, having an asylum case is not a legal status.”

– Héctor Arguinzones, organizer of a Venezuelan immigrant group

“We tell people to keep with their court cases and keep the paperwork with them, so at least they have something to show. At least it is something,” Arguinzones said.

Robin Nice, a Boston attorney, said six of her clients with pending asylum cases were detained in a January sweep called Operation Catch of the Day, and only one had had a brush with the law in the form of a year-old traffic case.

“They were typically on their way to or from work, sometimes just getting into their car after finishing a shift,” Nice said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in an unattributed statement to Stateline, said: “A pending asylum case does NOT confer any type of legal status in the United States. If a person enters our country illegally, they are subject to detention or deportation.”

Some of the asylum-seekers pursuing legal status through the courts have already been detained, but they make up a small fraction of the 2.8 million total cases.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

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Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

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