Border Report Live

A nonprofit organization that stresses community involvement and peaceful border solutions is hosting a weekend tour of Eagle Pass, Texas, and the Rio Grande. Amerika Garcia-Grewal, co-director of the Frontera Federation, said their Living River Convening event will give the public a chance to visit the South Texas border and view the river, as well as the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras. According to the event’s signup registration website says, the event “will address the intersection of border militarization, migrant rights, and the severe ecological degradation caused by climate change in the Rio Grande basin.”

A new report by the Brookings Institution examines a paradox along the U.S.-Mexico border: the government is spending billions of dollars on border security infrastructure, yet thousands of unincorporated communities known as “colonias” lack basic services such as paved roads, drainage systems, safe drinking water, and access to essential services. The report, titled “As Border Enforcement Expands, ‘Colonia’ Communities Are Left Without Basic Infrastructure,” was published on April 30 and focuses on border communities in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. One of the authors of the report, Adrik Gonzalez, appeared on Border Report Live on Tuesday. He outlined how outdated data, gaps in state and federal oversight, and limited county authority have left thousands of families vulnerable to flooding, public health risks, and long-term economic neglect — and why he says updating federal definitions and empowering local governments is critical to fixing the problem.

A Texas DACA recipient who was arrested and deported by ICE before being allowed to return to the U.S. only to be rearrested upon re-entry, has been released from detention. José Contreras Diaz, 30, of Edinburg, Texas, as released Wednesday from the Port Isabel Detention Center in the South Texas border town of Los Fresnos, where he had been held since April 29, the national immigration group FWD.us says. “I would not wish what I’ve been through on anyone. They detained me, sent me to a country I barely remember, and then gave me hope — the hope that I could come home, see my family, and hold my son again. Then that hope was taken away,” Diaz said in a statement issued by FWD.us. The arrest, detention and re-arrest of Diaz by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement adds to the growing number of arrests of DACA recipients, which is raising concern among the immigrant community.

The federal government has begun installing waterborne buoys in the Rio Grande in Laredo, Texas, City Councilwoman Melissa Cigarroa says. Construction began Wednesday, Cigarroa said on Thursday’s episode Border Report Live. She said the council has been told they cannot stop the installation of the giant orange buoys, which are meant to stop immigration from Mexico. But she says they are working hard to slow it down and study the process of border wall barrier being put on the banks of the Rio Grande through downtown Laredo.

The director of a new documentary film about two migrant women who sought sanctuary from U.S. immigration authorities in two Colorado churches for years says that is no longer an option for migrants today. In the latest episode of Border Report Live, Theo Rigby, director and producer of “If I Could Stay/Si Pudiera Quedarme” tells South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles about how he chronicled the two women over eight years starting 2017 through 2025. They spent thousands of days living in the two different churches, which caused some strife for the congregations. Rigby says the film shows humanity through the lense of religion and highlights how these predominantly Anglo congregations helped these two women of color. Ingrid, from Peru, struggled to keep a sense of normalcy for her young and growing family as they lived in the basement of a church.

Newly unsealed U.S. indictments accusing sitting Mexican politicians and senior law enforcement officials of drug trafficking and corruption are impacting Mexico’s political system. On the latest episode of Border Report Live, host Rudy Mireles speaks with Ev Meade, director of Proceso Pacífico, about the unprecedented case involving a sitting governor, a senator, a city mayor and multiple high-ranking security officials accused of working with the Sinaloa cartel. Meade breaks down how extradition requests between the United States and Mexico work, why Mexican authorities are reviewing evidence before acting, and what past cases show can happen when powerful figures are not extradited. He also explains why this indictment stands out for detailing specific acts of violence, including the killing of a confidential informant. The discussion also explores political fallout for President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration, arguments over sovereignty, and growing public frustration in Sinaloa, where residents have endured months of sustained violence and instability.

The proposed elimination of Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants would cause economic and societal hardships to the United States, a professor said on this episode of Border Report Live. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on why the Trump administration wants to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of people from other countries who are allowed to legally live and work in the United States under the program. If TPS is lifted it would affect an estimated 1.3 million people, including 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. They would not be allowed to work and no longer protected from deportation. They’d be “yanking complying people out of the things they’ve been legally doing,” University of Texas at El Paso anthropology professor Josiah Heyman told Border Report Live host Rudy Mireles and South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez.

The recent arrest of a cartel leader has sparked a rash of violence in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas. The capture of Alexander Benavides Flores, known as “El Metro 9,” a leader within the Gulf Cartel, has triggered armed confrontations and blockades in Reynosa and the surrounding area across the border from McAllen, Texas. The violence prompted the State Department to issue travel warnings. KVEO/CBS4 reporter Jorge Vela has been monitoring the violence south of the border and has been speaking with residents of Reynosa.

During a recent congressional oversight visit to a migrant detention facility that holds pregnant youth in San Benito, Texas, U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Oregon, says she didn’t see one child. Dexter says she was told that there were seven youth at the facility, which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. That includes two who are pregnant, two who have just given birth and three non-pregnant girls, she said. But she says during her visit to the facility on Friday she didn’t actually see anyone, except for ORR management. “Well, we didn’t see any girls, and we had given notice that we not just wanted to tour the facility, but we wanted to be able to speak with some of these young women who are being detained there,” Dexter told Border Report after her tour. “The question in my mind is, what are they hiding?”

The Carnalismo National Brown Berets RGV Chapter is continuing a tradition of helping farmworkers on the South Texas border as it rallies the community against what they call unlawful arrests and detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Residents unhappy border wall popped up so close to their new homes In this episode of Border Report Live, chapter leader Elizabeth Rodriguez and member Denisse Carrion discuss how the Brown Berets are active in today’s political environment. They spoke with South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles about providing protection form community members at protests, as well as providing education and information to those who might be affected by immigration policies during this Trump administration. Modeled after the Black Panther Party, the Brown Berets were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Despite their appearance as a paramilitary organization, and being considered by many to be and extremist organization, Rodriguez says this group is more community-based. Their mission statement is: “We stand for education, community outreach and promoting unity for all those involved in a grassroots struggle.”

The 17th death of a migrant held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention so far this year raises serious concerns on oversight and how for-profit facilities are operating, Syracuse University professor Austin Kocher says. Kocher joined South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles on the latest episode of Border Report Live to break down ICE detentions and deaths during this second Trump administration Cuban-born Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, 27, died April 12 in a facility in Miami. He was found in his cell “in what appeared to be a suicide attempt,” ICE says. The death came just one day after Mexican national Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, 49, died in a Louisiana ICE facility after being “found unresponsive,” ICE reports.

At least three days a week, Jesuit Catholic priest Brian Strassburger goes to Mexico to celebrate Mass and minister to asylum-seeking migrants in towns south of the border, and those living in migrant shelters. In the latest episode of Border Report Live, Strassburger joined South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles live in the studio to talk about the people he serves in the Mexican border towns of Reynosa and Matamoros, and why he does it. He says Mexican border towns are particularly dangerous for vulnerable populations, like families with small children, who he says are preyed upon by Mexican cartels and targets for kidnapping. Since 2021, Strassburger has served the Rio Grande Valley region as part of the Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries.

A Venezuelan man pleaded his case to asylum officials on Thursday in an interview that his wife, a well-known doctor in South Texas, planned to attend until she was detained at the airport with the couple’s 5-year-old daughter. Milenko Faria was interviewed at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices near Los Angeles, while his wife, Dr. Rubeliz Bolivar, entered her sixth day in immigration custody in Texas and was unable to attend the appointment they had been waiting for for more than 10 years. Bolivar, who worked as a doctor in an area federally designated as medically underserved, was arrested by Border Patrol agents at McAllen International Airport on Saturday. She was with their American-born daughter, preparing to board a flight to join her husband and attend their asylum interview together.

Over 600 people signed up for a webinar on Wednesday evening to learn how to monitor and thwart U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expansion activities in local communities. The “ICE Out Everywhere” free webinar was hosted by the nonprofit group States at the Core (STAC) and drew 600 people from 35 states, STAC co-director Jill Garvey told Border Report. The “training is really a step beyond just documenting and responding to ICE in your neighborhood. It is thinking about all the other parts of the deportation machine,” Garvey said. “A big piece of this is the detention expansion — getting people oriented to this incredible push to expand incarceration of immigrants.” The 90-minute free webinar also focused on derailing 287(g) immigration program agreements with local law enforcement agencies.

A new report by two nonprofits says that conditions at the nation’s largest migrant detention facility operating in South Texas are “inhumane.” The report “A New Era of ICE Family Prisons” by Human Rights First, and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, Inc. (RAICES) says the thousands of migrant families held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center outside San Antonio endure “inhumane conditions, routine mistreatment, and due process violations.” Over 5,600 people were detained at the Dilley facility from April 2025 through February. The report is based on interviews with 35 families held in the facility during that time, as well as legal services providers. The report also is based on more than 300 legal cases in which RAICES has represented asylum-seekers.

The parents of an 8-year-old girl who died in Border Patrol custody in 2023 in Harlingen, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government with the help of several nonprofit organizations. The Texas Civil Rights Project, Haitian Bridge Alliance, and Texas A&M University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic on Friday filed the lawsuit on behalf of Mabel Estanislada Alvarez Benedicks and Rossel Doney Reyes, parents of Anadith Danay Reyes Álvarez. Anadith died on May 17, 2023 in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in Harlingen, eight days after the family crossed the Rio Grande into Brownsville, Texas from Mexico. “Without access to adequate emergency medical care in CBP custody, Anadith’s health continued to decline until she could no longer breathe. On May 17, 2023, Anadith died in her mother’s arms. Anadith’s death while in CBP custody was entirely preventable. CBP’s gross negligence directly caused her death,” the lawsuit contends.

The author of a new book on family separation and migration during the first Trump administration spoke with dozens of families and children from Latin America who spent months apart due to U.S. immigration policies. In the latest episode of Border Report Live, Gabrielle Oliveira, author of “Now We Are Here — Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life” spoke with South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez about how she located the 16 families and 30 children that she followed and documented from 2018 through 2021 after they crossed the U.S. border. The families came from Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and the children ranged in ages from four months to 18. Oliveira says their parents often expressed guilt over putting their children through arduous journeys north to cross the border into the United States. Some waited for months south of the border under the Migrant Protection Protocols policy, also known as remain in Mexico, which President Donald Trump implemented during his first term.

The Border Report team this week said goodbye to not one but two correspondents — Salvador Rivera and Julian Resendiz. Both joined host Rudy Mireles throughout the week to look back on the past six or seven years and some of the work that put them on the frontlines of the immigration debate. Border Report launched in the summer of 2019. Salvador joined the team to help cover the vast San Diego-Tijuana region in 2020, not long after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic and how it affected various aspects the border dominated the news cycle at the turn of the decade. On Friday, Salvador recalled the collaboration between Mexican and U.S. officials to help vaccinate workers by busing them from Tijuana into San Diego and back.

The Trump administration recently ordered the state of California to revoke the commercial driver’s licenses of thousands of immigrants, and there’s no telling when or if they’ll get them back. According to CalMatters, multiple lawsuits have been filed to restore those trucking licenses, but none have been successful. Adam Echelman, of CalMatters, reported that as many as 61,000 California truck drivers could loose lose their licenses in the coming years as a result of the federal actions. Echelman appeared on Border Report Live on Thursday. He outlined some of the policies that are aimed at getting  many immigrant workers off U.S. roads and some that ban what he described as an entire class of immigrants from getting commercial driver’s licenses.

The Border Report correspondents join host Rudy Mireles to discuss some of the topics they’ve covered in the past several years. Border Report launched in the summer of 2019. San Diego correspondent Salvador Rivera, joined the team in early 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold on the nation. Along with El Paso correspondent Julian Resendiz and South Texas Sandra Sanchez, the three correspondents highlight some of the stories that stood out to them.

Two South Texas lawmakers on Tuesday toured a federal detention facility in this border town where pregnant migrant teens are being sent, some as young as 13. U.S. Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Joaquin Castro, both Democrats, spent about an hour inside the facility, which is located downtown and across from San Benito’s museum. After the tour, Gonzalez said they wanted to make sure the pregnant teens are getting the medical care they need and that there are facilities on site to help them. “That they have the minimum medical standards of an American facility to care for pregnant women and we want to look after American citizens that are here now, and people with legal status that are here or in other facilities being detained,” said Gonzalez, who represents this congressional district. “We’re especially concerned with American citizens and assuring that they have the care that they deserve under the Constitution.”

As the city of El Paso, Texas expands the issues of immigration and cartel violence grow with it. El Paso correspondent Julian Resendiz looks back at the city he has covered for Border Report for nearly a decade. As he moves on in his journey, he examines the biggest stories that have impacted El Paso, Juarez and the surrounding communities that straddle two nations separated by a river.

An inspection of the nation’s largest immigration detention facility, located in West Texas, has found dozens of violations of national standards, while there are reports that the United States is halting buying more warehouses nationwide to convert into detention facilities. In this episode of Border Report Live, host Sandra Sanchez discusses her reporting on a detention facility located in San Benito, Texas, where pregnant immigrant youth are being sent and where adequate care is reportedly not available. Along during this Holy Week, we show video from Mount Cristo Rey, in Sunland Park, New Mexico, where pilgrims are streaming up and down the mountain, making a 2.3-mile climb to the 29-foot-tall limestone statue during this holiest of Christian holidays. The statue overlooks Mexico, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas.

Thousands of Mexicans are traveling to U.S. cities along the Southwest border to enjoy the beach, shop, and visit with relatives and friends during this Holy Week, known as Semana Santa, prior to the Easter holiday. In many parts of the border, many Americans travel south to Mexico during Holy Week. In this episode of Border Report Live, El Paso correspondent Julian Resendiz and host Rudy Mireles discuss how as many a 1 million folks are expected to head south of the border, as well as the safety precautions they need to take, especially as the State Department has put several Mexican states on its Do Not Travel list because it says it’s too dangerous. The state of Chihuahua, south of West Texas and New Mexico, is a Level 3 destination and the State Department urges Americans to “reconsider” travel there.

Whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the U.S. illegally will be up for debate in Supreme Court this week. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday over the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, which he signed on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term. The justices will hear Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling that struck down the citizenship restrictions, none of which have not taken effect anywhere in the country. Caitlin Patler, associate professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley, is the lead author of an amicus brief co-signed by 140 scholars and submitted to the Supreme Court. She presented estimates of the impacted population of children, projected financial contributions through 2074 under the status quo birthright citizenship, and a summary of research on the benefits of citizenship and the harms of revoking birthright citizenship.

Republicans in Washington are trying to undo long-held protections for immigrants. In this episode of Border Report Live, host Rudy Mireles discusses how Republicans are ramping up talks to overturn the Supreme Court decision that gave children of people living in the country illegally rights to a free public education. Also this week, Supreme Court will hear arguments over President Donald Trump’s executive order that would deny U.S. citizenship to children born in the United States to people who are in the country illegally or temporarily. Plus, a grandmother from South Texas found herself in an immigration detention facility after forgetting her visa during a trip south of the Border.

On this episode of Border Report Live, the increasing number of Mexican immigrants dying in U.S. custody, hundreds of migrants rescued from a locked trailer, a growing number of unaccompanied migrants youth crossing the border, and the state of Texas says it’s done building and paying for border walls. El Paso correspondent Julian Resendiz and host Rudy Mireles discuss the anger Mexican officials are expressing over the deaths of 13 of its citizens while in U.S. immigration custody. Plus, in the Mexican state of Veracruz, officials found a trailer with 239 Central and South American migrants, including 17 unaccompanied children, locked inside. Mexican authorities have taken the first steps to repatriate the adults, while the children have been taken into protective custody. The trailer was found in Xalapa, Mexico, which is about 565 miles south of McAllen in South Texas, where more unaccompanied migrant children are crossing the border illegally. An analysis by South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez of U.S. Customs and Border Protection data finds that one-third of all unaccompanied migrant children encountered on the Southwest border crossed into the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector.

Several members of the Austin City Council are awaiting a response from the city manager regarding how to address federal immigration policy and enforcement. The city council members sent Austin City Manager TC Broadnax a memorandum titled, “Protecting the People of Austin from Unconstitutional and Violent Federal Operations.” The memo has five directives, which include exploring ways to prohibit law enforcement from wearing face coverings in the city, expanding education programs to help people understand their rights, ensuring the city is reporting “violence, property damage, and allegations of criminal conduct” by federal officers, and finding ways to report instances where agents may have entered a property without a warrant. KXAN reporter Grace Reader spoke with one of the council members and got a comment from the city manager’s office.

Environmental groups and business leaders are pushing back against the federal government’s plans to put border wall and “smart wall” through the Big Bend region of West Texas. Maps on U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s website on Monday show orange lines, which indicate “smart wall” technology through much of the region, but some border wall is still expected to go through Big Bend Ranch State Park, says Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity. In the latest episode of Border Report Live, Jordahl tells South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles that border wall will devastate Big Bend National Park’s 1,500-foot-tall cliffs overlooking the Rio Grande, prevent wildlife from getting to the river to drink, and detour tourists and hikers and white-water rafters who frequent the region. In 2024, Big Bend National Park had over 561,000 visitors and generated $57 million to the local economy, and $63 million in economic output to the region, according to a March 12 letter by the Center for Biological Diversity and 131 other organizations and nonprofits sent to several lawmakers to garner their support for putting a stop to the wall, including U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.

The detention and deportation of immigrants who lived in the United States for years and have now been sent to Honduras is causing family separations and irreparable psychological and physical harm to children, according to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights and the Women’s Refugee Commission. Dr. Michele Heisler, medical director for the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights, details the report she co-authored on this episode of Border Report Live to South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles. She explains how she and other physicians spent several days in Honduras in November interviewing women and men who had just arrived after being deported, and also interviewed with physicians, counselors and government officials. The report, “What About My Children: Family Separation Among Parents Deported to Honduras,” says 92% of those deported had no criminal background. Most had been long-time residents living in the United States and were arrested at work, at courthouses during mandatory immigration hearings, while running errands, picking up children at school and at traffic stops.

Republican Oklahoma Markwayne Mullin is facing tough questions on Capitol Hill as he faces lawmakers who will decide whether he will be the next Department of Homeland Security Secretary. Sen. Rand Paul, the Republican from Kentucky, has made clear he has little regard for President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, fellow Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin. He says he’ll vote against him. Their differences go way back. In today's episode of Border Report Live, Migrant Insider's Pablo Manriquez shares the tale of how both men dislike each other. Manriquez was in the Senate committee hearing when the men squared off. Also on this episode, shocking allegations against the late Cesar Chavez that he abused young girls and women has left many in the country stunned.

The construction of a $3 billion new oil refinery on the South Texas border near expanding SpaceX and under construction LNG facility, as well as new border wall being built and border buoys put in the Rio Grande are concerning environmentalists. In this episode of Border Report Live, Jim Chapman of the nonprofit Save RGV tells South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles of the “hazards” that all of these projects pose to the Rio Grande Valley border environment. Chapman worries that a launch-related explosion at SpaceX – which is located just four miles from the Port of Brownsville – could cause significant damage if it was to cause fire at the port with all of its new construction and chemicals. A $15 billion LNG facility is being built at the port, the same port where President Donald Trump last week announced a new oil refinery also will be built on the border with Mexico in Brownsville, Texas.

Reimbursing tariffs on goods from other countries, and giving rebates to American consumers for the higher costs associated with those tariffs, was discussed on the latest episode of Border Report Live. So far, several Democratic lawmakers have filed two bills in Congress that would give tariff rebates to reimburse consumers for price increases due to tariffs imposed in 2025 by President Donald Trump on other countries. The U.S. Supreme Court last month ruled that Trump exceeded his executive powers in issuing the tariffs by executive order. South Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar has filed the American Consumer Tariff Rebate Act of 2026, which, if passed by Congress, would give “direct refunds to taxpayers for increased consumer costs attributable to tariffs imposed without congressional authorization,” according to the bill filed March 9.

Dozens of license plate readers have been popping up in Southern California, especially near the border, and they’re raising concerns with privacy experts, civil liberties advocates and humanitarian aid workers.   According to CalMatters, the license plate readers are being operated by the Border Patrol and other federal agencies that were granted permits by the state of California. The news agency also learned that as many as 40 are feeding information into Trump administration databases. CalMatters spoke with one of those aid workers, who first spotted the cameras, thinking it was an abandoned trailer possibly related to some of the humanitarian work he does to help migrants in distress. CalMatters reporter Wendy Fry, who, along with Khari Johnson, reported on the license plate readers, appeared on Border Report Live on Friday.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, says the Trump administration has eliminated almost all legal pathways for asylum-seekers wanting to enter the United States. Reichlin-Melnick appeared on Border Report Live on Wednesday. He tells South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles that it is effectively impossible to seek asylum at the southern border. “Migrants cannot go to ports of entry to seek asylum. And even the limited ways in which they were processing people in ports of entry in Trump’s first term have been cut off,” he said. His comments come after the release of a McAllen family that had been recently detained by ICE. An ICE official earlier this week said the family had “illegally” entered the United States in May 2023. They were detained and arrested when they went for a mandatory routine meeting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on Feb. 25.

The lawyer for a member of McAllen High School’s mariachi on Tuesday discussed how he helped get him released from an ICE detention facility and what he endured in this Border Report Live exclusive. Efrén Olivares, of the National Immigration Law Center, tells South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez and host Rudy Mireles how Antonio Gamez-Cuellar, 18, was arrested with his two younger brothers, Caleb, 14, and Joshua, 12. Their parents, Emma Guadalupe Cuellar Lopez, and Luis Antonio Gamez Martinez, also were detained when the family went to a mandatory meeting with U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement officials on Feb. 25, he said. Olivares says normally the children did not attend these ICE check-ins. But on this day, ICE officials required the entire family to be present. “And when they showed up, they arrested all five of them without any justification, without giving them a reason and no change in circumstances whatsoever,” Olivares said. Because Antonio is an adult, he was separated from his family and held at the El Valle Detention Family in Raymondville, Texas. The others were held about 215 miles away at the ICE facility in Dilley, Texas

A member of a high school mariachi from McAllen, Texas, was released from immigration detention Monday afternoon after public outcry prompted a Republican congresswoman to go to the facility and help get him out. Word of Antonio Gamez-Cuellar’s release from the El Valle Detention Facility on Monday in Raymondville, Texas, broke as Border Report Live started. U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Texas, was seen walking out of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility with Gamez-Cuellar. De La Cruz spoke briefly before the two got into a vehicle and rode away. Protesters had gathered outside of the facility during the weekend.

A bishop from Southern California has been arrested on suspicion of embezzlement and was reportedly seen at a brothel south of the border. Bishop Emmanuel Shaleta, 69, was reportedly arrested moments before boarding a flight out of the country. According to FOX5/KUSI in San Diego, Shaleta, 69, of the diocese of St. Peter the Apostle, was arrested on suspicion of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from his own church. The former leader of the Chaldean El Cajon Church had been under investigation from the Vatican and the sheriff’s department after members of the church lodged complaints. In this episode of Border Report Live, correspondent Salvador Rivera and host Rudy Mireles discuss the case, including reports from a Catholic-centric publication that Shaleta was seen going into the Hong Kong Gentleman’s Club, a renowned strip club and brothel in Tijuana.

The sudden firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday reverberated from the halls of Congress to border communities. Trump on Thursday posted on social media that he’d let Noem go and had replaced her with Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma. “Current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere … I thank Kristi for her service at “Homeland,” Trump posted on Truth Social. This announcement came moments before Thursday’s Border Report Live show with host Rudy Mireles and correspondents Salvador Rivera, Julian Resendiz and Sandra Sanchez, who discussed recent visits by Noem to the various border communities they cover and her rocky tenure leading the agency and over 260,000 employees. Noem’s last day at DHS is March 31. According to The Hill, Noem has been reassigned as special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a regional coalition of countries in Latin America that Trump says will work together on ideology and policy initiatives to help secure the Western Hemisphere and pursue U.S. interests

Primary elections held Tuesday in Texas had some surprising results, especially in border districts where Democrats are vying to gain ground in a state they have not held statewide office in since 1994. In Texas’ 23rd Congressional District 23, incumbent Rep. Tony Gonzales faces a surprising May 26 runoff for the Republican nomination against YouTuber and firearms manufacturer Brandon Herrera after neither received over 50% of the vote, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s office. Gonzales decries ‘filthy campaign tactics’ from opponent as he heads to runoff In the latest episode of Border Report Live, El Paso correspondent Julian Resendiz also talks about a formal investigation announced Wednesday by the House Ethics Committee against Gonzales, who has been accused of having had an affair with a former staffer who committed suicide. South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez breaks down several border races, including that of two-time Latin Grammy winning singer Bobby Pulido, who won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday night to go against Republican incumbent Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz in Texas’ 15th Congressional District. De La Cruz was unopposed on Tuesday.

While many hailed last week’s killing of Jalisco cartel boss Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera as a great day in the fight against drugs in the U.S. and Mexico, one border expert is saying “not so fast.” Ev Meade, historian and the director of Proceso Pacífico, which runs peacebuilding programs in Mexican and Colombian communities impacted by cartel violence, tells Border Report Live simply killing “capos” like Oseguera is not enough to end cartel dominance over Mexico. Meade also discussed President Trump’s influence over his counterpart in Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, and the likelihood of U.S. military intervention south of the border. Another topic broached by Meade on Border Report Live is the need for more severe punishment for murder in Mexico on par with prison sentences given for drug trafficking.

Illegal migration remains near historical lows along the U.S.-Mexico border. But a group of volunteers continues finding skeletal remains on a stretch of desert in New Mexico. Battalion Search and Rescue leaders say they have located 100 sets of skeletal remains there in the past two years. Most of the remains appear to be women, group founder James Holeman said. “It’s a shocking number, it’s a shocking statistic,” Holeman said Monday on Border Report Live. “Women and young girls have been found in a very small area just west of El Paso. Their average age is 29, the youngest are a pair of 16-year-old girls.” Battalion Search and Rescue has been looking for imperiled migrants since 2020 in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. The group focused on New Mexico after nonprofits and federal authorities began reporting a record number of migrant deaths in the El Paso Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol in 2023 and 2024.

About 50 people gathered Thursday at a park on the edge of downtown Brownsville to peacefully protest the buoy barriers that the federal government is installing nearby in the Rio Grande. They played a life-sized game of lotería, passed out aguas fresca in the 90-degree heat, and hit a piñata in the shape of a red border buoys full of candy. “The Department of Homeland Security is actively installing dangerous border buoys in our river,” Bekah Hinojosa of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network told Border Report as she arrived Thursday afternoon to set up for the protest. “The river is supposed to be a pristine habitat, it nourishes our community and we demand equal protections for our river.” Hinojosa says she watched buoys being installed on Thursday “causing an ecological disaster.”

President Donald Trump delivered the longest State of the Union address ever given to Congress on Tuesday night and included several references to immigration and border issues. In the latest episode of Border Report Live, host Rudy Mireles and South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez break down how Trump pushed for an end to sanctuary cities, sought voter ID reforms and touted what he calls the “strongest and most secure border in American history.” Trump also repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for what he called “unrestricted immigration and open borders,” which he says brought unwanted criminals into the United States. Trump also called for the full and immediate restoration of all funding for border security and the Department of Homeland Security.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is purchasing dozens of warehouses for immigration detention facilities in communities across the country, sometimes in secret and unknown to local leaders. In the latest episode of Border Report Live, David Hernandez, associate professor and co-chair of the Critical Race and Political Economy Department at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts talks with South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez about ICE’s plan to move thousands of migrants into these facilities in unsuspecting communities. Hernandez conducts research on U.S. immigration enforcement policy and how past administrations have used detentions as an immigration deterrent. ICE wants to spend $38.3 billion to increase detention beds to 92,600 nationwide. At least 20 communities have been slated to have large warehouses converted into detention facilities that hold upwards of 10,000 people each.

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes has been in the crosshairs of Mexican law enforcement since at least 2015, when his associates allegedly shot down a military helicopter in Jalisco, Mexico, and killed nine soldiers. But it wasn’t until Sunday that Mexican troops found the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and ended his life in a hail of bullets. The obvious question is why now? Mexican army kills leader of powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel during operation to capture him. International security experts say U.S. pressure has been mounting on Mexico since President Trump took office last year and designated the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Mexico, too, had cause to eliminate a public safety threat – CJNG five years ago allegedly tried to kill Omar Garcia Harfuch, the -then Mexico City police chief and Mexico’s current public safety secretary. Joining us on Border Report Live is Dale Buckner, CEO of Global Guardian, a Virginia-based international security firm. “I think the United States has an unbelievable capability with a combination of signal intelligence, satellite intelligence and human intelligence,” Buckner told us.

Several Democrats are expected to skip President Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and some have even planned a counter event. Trump will address Congress on Feb. 24. The Democrats’ event, which will features speeches from lawmakers, will take place at 8:30 p.m. on the National Mall, according to several reports. During this latest episode of Border Report Live, Pablo Manriquez, of the Washington, D.C.-based Migrant Insider, tells southern California correspondent Salvador Rivera what to watch for during Tuesday’s big speech. Manriquez also gives an update on 2-month-old Juan Nicolás, who was deported to Mexico after being held at an ICE detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

An event that brought people from all over the country in 2025 to retrace the route of the Underground Railroad from South Texas to Mexico is returning. Roseann Bacha-Garza, manager of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Community Historical Archaeology project with Schools (CHAPS) joined Border Report Live to discuss the upcoming three-day event being held Feb. 27-March 1 that starts in Alamo, Texas. Bacha-Garza says this year they’re walking 24 miles. In March 2025, the group walked 65 miles over seven days, retracing several sites where “freedom seekers” went through South Texas.

Mexican officials tell Border Report they’re considering putting a boom in the Tijuana River Valley to catch trash and stop it from crossing into the United States. After days of heavy rain in Southern California, the smell in the border area is overwhelming and a gubernatorial hopeful who visited this week wants to declare it a state of emergency. California correspondent Salvador Rivera brings exclusive reporting from the region on the latest episode of Border Report Live. Rivera toured the flooding on Wednesday. He describes the boom structure that Mexico is talking about putting up to help stop contaminates from coming across from Mexico.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids near schools and in communities are taking a toll on children and their ability to learn, according to a recent lawsuit. The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed the emergency motion in federal court in Oregon to stop ICE from conducting enforcement operations near schools, colleges, churches, hospitals, and other community-serving “sensitive locations.” “The mere presence of ICE near school grounds terrorizes students and educators and disrupts teaching and learning. Fear and cruelty have no place in public education or our democracy,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement. “We are taking this legal action to demand that long-standing protections for sensitive locations be restored. The places we go for care, education, and worship must never become places of intimidation and cruelty at the hands of federal agents.” In the latest episode of Border Report Live, California correspondent Salvador Rivera talks about the lawsuit filed in Oregon. Several California teachers are part of the lawsuit and have given testimony about how ICE raids are harming children’s ability to learn.