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HOUSTON (AP) — rosecutors say two Houston women have been charged with luring workers from the Philippines with false claims of medical jobs in the U.S. A federal indictment unsealed Tuesday in Houston names 38-year-old Monica Castro and 54-year-old Blessilda Lagron.
SPRING, Texas — 16-year-old boy has been airlifted from a high school in suburban Houston with stab wounds suffered in an altercation at the campus. The fight involved multiple students Wednesday inside Spring High School, about 20 miles north of Houston.
EL PASO, Texas —
A west Texas school district recovering from a testing scandal that sent an educator to federal prison has hired an attorney as its superintendent. The El Paso Independent School District board of managers on Tuesday approved a contract with Juan Eduardo Cabrera Jr., the El Paso Times said (http://bit.ly/1a6cH0I ) in a report published Wednesday.
Wanted Sex Offender Arrives at Del Rio Port in Ambulance
Subject of Warrants Stabbed Multiple Times; Now in Custody
DEL RIO, Texas – A man who arrived at the Del Rio Port of Entry bleeding from multiple stab wounds is in federal custody after it was determined he was the subject of several warrants.
“This individual arrived at the Port of Entry in dire need of medical attention, which he promptly received,” said Michael Perez, Port Director, Del Rio. “However, it was determined that he is a wanted man and he has been turned over to the proper authorities.”
Shortly after midnight Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Del Rio Port of Entry inspected a Mexican ambulance as it arrived in the United States. The ambulance driver told officers that he had a U.S. citizen in the back of his vehicle, suffering from multiple stab wounds.
The subject, Daniel Gomez, 28, was in possession of a Minnesota state identification card and an Illinois birth certificate as identification. He was accompanied by his sister-in-law, a 27-year-old woman who presented a B1/B2 Visa (border crossing card) as identification.
A query of law enforcement databases revealed that Gomez is a registered sex offender wanted for parole violation; sex offender registration violation in Minnesota; and parole violation for narcotics smuggling issued by the United States Marshals. Officers escorted the ambulance to Val Verde Regional Medical Center, where custody of Gomez was turned over to an agent from the U.S. Marshals Service Lone Star Fugitive Task Force.
The Office of Field Operations is the primary organization within U.S. Customs and Border Protection tasked with an anti-terrorism mission at our nation’s ports. CBP officers screen all people, vehicles and goods entering the U.S. while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel. Their mission also includes carrying out border-related duties, including narcotics interdiction, enforcing immigration and trade laws, and protecting the nation's food supply and agriculture industry from pests and diseases.
-CBP-
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unifie
CHRIS TOMLINSON, Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Two South Texas counties have among the highest rates of people without health insurance in the nation, with working Hispanic men in South Texas the most likely to not have coverage, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Hidalgo County has the highest rate among urban counties at 38.9 percent, and MaverickCounty has the highest rate among medium-sized counties at 35.1 percent.
Texas continues to have the highest uninsured rate in the country, with about one in four people having no coverage of any kind. Massachusetts, which requires residents to have coverage, has the lowest uninsured rate in the nation at 4.9 percent.
The Census Bureau's Small Area Health Insurance Estimates are a statistical analysis of the American Community Survey data and other census information combined with federal income tax, Medicaid, food stamps and County Business Patterns records. The dataset is for 2011, the latest year available.
There are vast differences in uninsured rates based on location, ethnicity, income, gender and age. Hispanic males were the least likely to have health insurance nationally, but in Texas the rate was 67.4 percent of Hispanic men between the ages of 18-64 who earn less than $23,000 a year. That is an estimated 950,000 people.
Under the Affordable Care Act, 320,000 of those men will be required to purchase subsidized health insurance, but because Gov. Rick Perry rejected a federal plan to expand Medicaid to include the working poor, more than 630,000 men will not be eligible for the health care program for the poor or subsidized insurance because they make too little.
Texas Medicaid is primarily for children, the disabled the elderly poor, with very few childless adults eligible.
The uninsured rate for white men with the same income was only 42 percent, or 303,000 people. The rate for blacks was 47 percent, or 155,000 men. Among Texas's most populous counties, Dallas County had the highest rate at 30.5 percent, but Harris County had the most people at more than 1 million.
The five counties with more than 25,000 residents that had the highest uninsured rates were all in South Texas ranging from 34.6 percent in Starr County to 38.9 percent in Hidalgo County. For Eddie Olivarez, chief administrative officer of Hidalgo County's Health and Human Services department, the numbers were all too familiar.
"We always wind up being one, two or three," he said.
The rate is the result of the county's transition from an agriculture-based economy to a service-oriented one, and its location on the Texas-Mexico border, he said. Hidalgo has a fast-growing population, but not the kinds of jobs that offer private health insurance.
So Hidalgo County is one of many counties across the state to pass resolutions calling for the expansion of Medicaid to include the working poor. Otherwise, those individuals end up in local emergency rooms where local residents have to pick up the tab either through higher county taxes or higher premiums on their private insurance.
Perry and other Republican leaders, though, remain adamantly opposed.
"Texas measures its health care success by the options that are provided for coverage, and the efforts to create ones that are affordable," Perry spokesman Josh Havens said. "Medicaid is a broken system, and we think it would be irresponsible to expand a program that is unsustainable."
Perry has instead called on the federal government to provide Texas with all of the available federal funds for Medicaid without any strings attached. Perry rejected a federal proposal to expand the existing Medicaid system with the federal government providing $100 billion over the next 10 years in return for the state spending $15 billion.
In the meantime, the Rio Grande Valley is pinning much of its hope on the planned University of Texas medical school. The area's hospitals and municipalities have banded together to drive the project with the idea that the new doctors it will churn out will increase access to health care, Olivarez said.
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AP Correspondent Chris Sherman contributed to this story from McAllen.
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On the Internet: Small Area Health Insurance Estimates:http://www.census.gov/did/www/sahie/index.html
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
DALLAS (AP) — Five Dallas police officers have been fired and one of them was arrested in an investigation into the death of a man whose bicycle collided with a patrol car. Chief David Brown on Tuesday dismissed the officers, including Bryan Burgess. Burgess was charged with criminally negligent homicide in the May death of Fred Bradford. Brown also fired Michael Puckett, who was working with Burgess during the April accident. Investigators say the officers lied and their actions endangered Bradford. An attorney for Burgess and Puckett denied wrongdoing. Burgess wasn't listed in online jail records Wednesday. Brown fired two family violence detectives who failed to investigate hundreds of cases. A third officer in the matter resigned. Brown fired an officer who was arrested in June on suspicion of sexual assault. Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
By Laura Nelson
Sul Ross-Rio Grande College puts opportunity in the hands of adults considering a master's degree with five programs that may be completed entirely on-line and several more that mix web-based and teleconference classes. The on-line programs include graduate degrees in English, History, Criminal Justice, and Public Administration as well as a Master's of Business Administration.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) authored the following op-ed in The Monitor: Long Border Entry Wait Times Hurt Our Economy U.S. Sen. John Cornyn The Monitor August 13, 2013 http://www.themonitor.com/opinion/columnists/article_9859b00e-042f-11e3-82c1-001a4bcf6878.html A component of comprehensive immigration reform that too often is overlooked in Washington is the tremendous amount of legal trade flowing across our southern border.
PHARR, TEXAS— fficers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of Field at the Pharr International Bridge seized $1,567,000 in marijuana that was concealed within a commercial shipment of fresh produce. On Friday evening, August 9, 2013 a green 1994 International tractor pulling a white 1997 Utility trailer arrived at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge cargo facility with a manifested commercial shipment of fresh avocados. A CBP officer referred the shipment to the vehicle non-intrusive imaging system and after noting anomalies within the trailer, the shipment proceeded to the secondary inspection dock for further examination of conveyance and commodity. During the course of the secondary examination, officers discovered packages of suspected narcotics concealed within the roof of the trailer. CBP officers removed 120 packages of alleged marijuana weighing approximately 711 kilograms (1,567 lbs.). CBP-OFO seized the marijuana along with the tractor/trailer. “This substantial interception of marijuana was accomplished due to our officers’ excellent commitment to the CBP mission and the outstanding teamwork displayed on a day-to-day basis,” said Efrain Solis Jr., Port Director, Hidalgo/Pharr/Anzalduas.
ANZALDUAS,TEXAS U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of Field Operations (OFO) at the Anzalduas International Bridge seized $4,748,000 worth of narcotics and arrested a man from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico in connection with the failed smuggling attempt. In a separate, unrelated incident, CBP officers at the Hidalgo International Bridge arrested a Houston, Texas woman who allegedly attempted to smuggle a one-year-old male infant into the United States.