Abbott’s Border Splurge
Operation Lone Star has unleashed a windfall for private contractors cashing in on a four-year-long emergency shopping spree.
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What a Drag: Nate Schatzline
The Fort Worth state rep spends another session waging a “spiritual battle” in the Texas House, with bad bills and incessant posting.
Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our March/April 2025 Issue
A note from the Editor-in-Chief
Local and State Police Are Joining Trump’s ‘Deportation Force’
Texas law enforcement agencies and others around the nation are reviving a long-dead “task force” program that led to racial profiling in the past.
Congressmen Demand Investigation of ICE Prosecutor Running Racist X Account
Following the Observer’s reporting, three U.S. House members have demanded accountability, while James Rodden still appeared on an ICE court schedule this week.
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Politics
‘Till They Have to Roll Me Off the Floor’
Sylvia Garcia on the immigration narrative, the 14th Amendment, and the long fight for Dreamers
Costly New Bail Bills Would Needlessly Jail More People
Texas politicians are wasting your money to punish the working class.
Will Texas Secure Its Water Future?
Senator Charles Perry outlines an expansive vision of where Texans will get their H₂O in the coming decades.
Border and Immigration
‘Asylum as We Know It’: An Immigration Historian on Trump, Refuge, and Exclusion
After World War II, “People understood that if they had allowed more immigrants into the United States, many of them wouldn’t have been killed in Europe.”
Remembering Boca Chica Beach—Before Elon Musk Came to Town
Destruction isn’t always something physical, but also something done to memory.
ICE Agents in Churches ‘Does Not Bode Well for the Future of Religion’ in America
“They’re de facto endorsing government interference with the church—the very government interference with the church that they’ve complained about in the past.”
Culture
Inside Fort Worth’s Narcotic Farm Experiment
Rehab on the Range tells the story of Texas’ role in one of the largest federal forays into drug treatment.
Trans Children Are God’s Gifts
Without the support of our Christian church in the Houston suburbs, my daughter might not be with us today.
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March/April 2025
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