www.thecentersquare.com – By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square contributor – (The Center Square – ) 2025-03-21 06:54:00
(The Center Square) – According to the most recently available data, there were nearly 50,000 border crime arrests reported statewide in Texas in 2023 by local law enforcement agencies.
Eighty percent of arrests occurred in 20 counties, according to an annual Texas border crime report published by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The majority of border crime arrests, 8,621, were reported in Harris County, the largest county in Texas, where Houston, the county seat, is a primary destination for illegal border crossers and hub for cartel and gang activity, The Center Square has reported.
The next greatest number of arrests were reported in Dallas County (6,247), followed by El Paso County (3,245); Tarrant County (3,144) and Hidalgo County (2,611), rounding out the top five.
Arrests in Travis (2,300), Bexar (1,717), Collin (1,520), Denton (1,313) and Cameron (1,171) counties rounded out the top 10 with the greatest number of reported border crime arrests.
Of the top 20 counties reporting the most border crime arrests, only five are located at the Texas-Mexico border.
The majority of reported border crime arrests were in counties where the largest cities are located: Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio – all considered hubs and gateways for drug and human trafficking and smuggling, law enforcement officers have explained to The Center Square. The cities are also home to employers who hire illegal foreign nationals for cheap labor, often at restaurants, hotels, laundromats, in the construction and hospitality industries, officials have told to The Center Square.
Arrest offenses totaled 46,793 statewide in 2023, according to the report.
The greatest number of arrest offenses were traffic offenses and DWIs (12,338), assault (8,122), dangerous drugs (4,043), obstructing police (3,365), larceny (3,160), federal offenses (2,708), public order crimes (1,617), trafficking and smuggling (1,251), invading privacy (882), burglary (753) and weapon offenses (740).
“Border crime impacts all areas of Texas,” the Texas Department of Public Safety states. “As the data contained in these pages demonstrates, criminal illegal aliens account for a significant number of serious offenses in Texas. These criminals harm Texans and affect our safety and security.”
The report compiles data submitted by local law enforcement agencies for offenses and arrests reported to DPS using data collected through Texas’ Uniform Crime Reporting program.
Texas Government Code defines “Border crime” as “(a)ny crime involving transnational criminal activity that undermines public safety or security … committed by a person who is not a citizen or national of the United States and is not lawfully present in the United States” or that “is coordinated with or related to activities or crimes that occur or are committed in the United Mexican States.”
A border crime arrest refers to criminal offenses committed by foreign nationals who are in the U.S. illegally, as identified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The report doesn’t include all arrests of illegal foreign nationals because not everyone arrested is in the DHS database. An individual’s lawful status is determined by matching fingerprints to a DHS database. If the arrestee’s fingerprints aren’t yet in the DHS database at the time of their Texas arrest, DHS isn’t able to biometrically verify their status and that information isn’t included in the report, DPS explains.
The data covers Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2023, with data updated as of March 30, 2024.
State law requires DPS to prepare and submit an annual report on border crime to the state legislature every year.
“Texas is fortunate to have a high number of law enforcement agencies that contribute to the UCR program,” DPS said; 1,401 Texas agencies contributed data to the UCR program. “Without their participation, reports such as this would not be meaningful.”
feeds.texastribune.org – By Terri Langford, Dan Keemahill and Hayden Betts – 2025-07-10 17:52:00
Following devastating July 4 flooding in Kerr County that killed nearly 100, officials blamed taxpayer resistance for the lack of flood warning sirens along the Guadalupe River. Despite awareness since 2016 of flood risks and the need for a $1 million warning system, political conservatism and a tight tax base stalled progress. An application for FEMA funding was denied due to the absence of a hazard mitigation plan, and the county’s $10.2 million American Rescue Plan Act funds were largely spent on public safety radio systems, not flood warnings. Local leaders and residents now push to install sirens for future safety.
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In the week after the tragic July 4 flooding in Kerr County, several officials have blamed taxpayer pressure as the reason flood warning sirens were never installed along the Guadalupe River.
“The public reeled at the cost,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly told reporters one day after the rain pushed Guadalupe River levels more than 32 feet, resulting in nearly 100 deaths in the county, as of Thursday.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly speaks during a press conference at the Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville on Saturday July 5, 2025. Credit: Ronaldo Bolaños/The Texas Tribune
A community that overwhelmingly voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024, Kerr County constructed an economic engine on the allure of the Guadalupe River. Government leaders acknowledged the need for more disaster mitigation, including a $1 million flood warning system that would better alert the public to emergencies, to sustain that growth, but they were hamstrung by a small and tightfisted tax base.
An examination of transcripts since 2016 from Kerr County’s governing body, the commissioners court, offers a peek into a small Texas county paralyzed by two competing interests: to make one of the country’s most dangerous region for flash flooding safer and to heed to near constant calls from constituents to reduce property taxes and government waste.
“This is a pretty conservative county,” said former Kerr County Judge Tom Pollard, 86. “Politically, of course, and financially as well.”
County zeroes in on river safety in 2016
Cary Burgess, a local meteorologist whose weather reports can be found in the Kerrville Daily Times or heard on Hill Country radio stations, has noticed the construction all along the Guadalupe for the better part of the last decade.
More Texans and out-of-state residents have been discovering the river’s pristine waters lined with bald cypress trees, a long-time draw for camping, hiking and kayaking, and they have been coming in droves to build more homes and businesses along the water’s edge. If any of the newcomers were familiar with the last deadly flood in 1987 that killed 10 evacuating teenagers, they found the river’s threat easy to dismiss.
“They’ve been building up and building up and building up and doing more and more projects along the river that were getting dangerous,” Burgess recalls. “And people are building on this river, my gosh, they don’t even know what this river’s capable of.”
By the time the 1987 flood hit, the county had grown to about 35,000 people. Today, there are about 53,000 people living in Kerr County.
In 2016, Kerr County commissioners already knew they were getting outpaced by neighboring, rapidly growing counties on installing better flood warning systems and were looking for ways to pull ahead.
During a camp evacuation ahead of rising floodwaters, a Seagoville Road Baptist Church bus was swept into the Guadalupe River near the town of Comfort during the July 17, 1987 flood. Forty three people — four adults and 39 teenagers — were washed into the river. Ten teenagers died. Credit: The National Weather Service
During a March 28 meeting that year, they said as much.
“Even though this is probably one of the highest flood-prone regions in the entire state where a lot of people are involved, their systems are state of the art,” Commissioner Tom Moser said then. He discussed how other counties like Comal had moved to sirens and more modern flood warning systems.
“And the current one that we have, it will give – all it does is flashing light,” explained W.B. “Dub” Thomas, the county’s emergency management coordinator. “I mean all – that’s all you get at river crossings or wherever they’re located at.”
Kerr County already had signed on with a company that allowed its residents to opt in and get a CodeRED alert about dangerous weather conditions. But Thomas urged the commissioners court to strive for something more. Cell service along the headwaters of the Guadalupe near Hunt was spotty in the western half of Kerr County, making a redundant system of alerts even more necessary.
“I think we need a system that can be operated or controlled by a centralized location where – whether it’s the Sheriff’s communication personnel, myself or whatever, and it’s just a redundant system that will complement what we currently have,” Thomas said that year.
“The purpose of this project is to provide Kerr County with a flood warning system,” the county wrote in its application. “The System will be utilized for mass notification to citizens about high water levels and flooding conditions throughout Kerr County.”
But the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which oversees billions of FEMA dollars designed to prevent disasters, denied the application because they didn’t have a current hazard mitigation plan. They resubmitted it, news outlets reported, but by then, priority was given to counties that had suffered damage from Hurricane Harvey.
Political skepticism about a windfall
All that concern about warning systems seemed to fade over the next five years, as the political atmosphere throughout the county became more polarized and COVID fatigue frayed local residents’ nerves.
In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.
“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.
“We don’t want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We’d like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.”
When it was all said and done, the county approved $7 million in ARPA dollars on a public safety radio communications system for the sheriff’s department and county fire services to meet the community’s needs for the next 10 years, although earlier estimates put that contract at $5 million. Another $1 million went to sheriff’s employees in the form of stipends and raises, and just over $600,000 went towards additional county positions. A new walking path was also created with the ARPA money.
While much has been made of the ARPA spending, it’s not clear if residents or the commissioners understood at the time they could have applied the funds to a warning system. Current Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, and Thomas have declined repeated requests for interviews. Moser, who is no longer a commissioner, did not immediately respond to a Texas Tribune interview request.
Many Kerr County residents, including those who don’t normally follow every cog-turn of government proceedings, have now been poring over the county commissioners meetings this week including Ingram City Council member Raymond Howard. They’ve been digging into ARPA spending and other ways that the county missed opportunities to procure $1 million to implement the warning system commissioners wanted almost 10 years ago, and to prevent the devastating death toll from this week.
A week ago, Howard spent the early morning hours of July 4 knocking on neighbors’ doors to alert them to the flooding after he himself ignored the first two phone alerts on his phone in the middle of the night.
In the week since, the more he’s learned about Kerr County’s county inaction on a flood warning system, the angrier he has become.
“Well, they were obviously thinking about it because they brought it up 20 times since 2016 and never did anything on it,” Howard said, adding that he never thought to ask the city to install sirens previously because he didn’t realize the need for it. “I’m pretty pissed about that.”
Harvey Hilderbran, the former Texas House representative for Kerr County, said what he is watching play out in the community this week is what he’s seen for years in Texas: A disaster hits. There’s a rush to find out who’s accountable. Then outrage pushes officials to shore up deficiencies.
It’s not that Kerr County was dead set against making the area safer, Hilderbran said. Finding a way to pay for it is always where better ideas run aground, especially with a taxbase and leadership as fiscally conservative as Kerr’s.
“Generally everybody’s for doing something until it gets down to the details paying for it,” Hilderbran said. “It’s not like people don’t think about it … I know it’s an issue on their minds and something needs to be done.”
Howard, the 62-year-old Ingram city council member, came to Kerr County years ago to care for an ailing mother. Although he has now been diagnosed with stage four cancer, he said he intends to devote his life to make sure that his small two-mile town north of Kerrville has a warning system and he already knows where he’s going to put it.
“We’re going to get one, put it up on top of the tower behind the volunteer fire department,” he said. “It’s the thing I could do even if it’s the last thing I do …to help secure safety for the future.”
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Right
This article presents a mostly factual and balanced overview of Kerr County’s flood warning system challenges within a politically conservative community. It highlights the county’s strong conservative stance on limited government spending and skepticism toward federal aid, reflecting typical right-leaning priorities such as fiscal conservatism and wariness of federal involvement. The coverage is careful to present multiple perspectives, including official statements and local residents’ concerns, without overt editorializing or ideological framing. The tone and content suggest an objective report focused on local governance dynamics rather than promoting a partisan agenda, though the conservative context is clearly emphasized.
www.kxan.com – Abigail Jones – 2025-07-10 12:34:00
SUMMARY: Devastating floods in Texas have caused significant damage and at least 120 deaths, with many still missing. Central Texas wildlife is struggling too. All Things Wild Rehabilitation in Georgetown is caring for over 500 animals affected by the floods, including orphaned, injured, and displaced wildlife. The nonprofit urgently needs donations, volunteers, and more land to continue its work. They have already admitted nearly as many animals in 2025 as all of last year, emphasizing the ongoing impact of extreme weather. All Things Wild provides extensive care and safely releases animals back into natural habitats. They encourage public support and offer guidance for reporting injured wildlife.
SUMMARY: One year after Hurricane Beryl left over 2 million people without power, CenterPoint has made major changes to prevent another crisis. Investigations revealed failures in tree trimming and slow deployment of out-of-town crews. Since then, CenterPoint has installed 26,000 new power poles built to withstand 130+ mph winds, cleared 6,000 miles of vegetation, and added 350 smart grid switching devices to isolate faults remotely. They also deployed 100 weather stations for real-time data and improved mutual aid crew staging by increasing resources by 25%. These efforts have halved average outage durations from 80 to 40 minutes.
KHOU 11 investigates exposed major flaws in CenterPoint’s response and our reporting helped spark sweeping changes.
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