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BORDER TRADE
HOUSE BILL 11
Border bill signed Photo by Jennifer Whitney | Texas Tribune
New Federal Inspection Station encompassing Mexican and US Customs at Laredo International Airport, March 11, 2014.
Abbott OKs $310M law By JULIÁN AGUILAR TEXAS TRIBUNE
Mexico loosening rules
HOUSTON — To Gov. Greg Abbott, signing a sweeping, multi-million-dollar border security bill hundreds of miles from the Rio Grande made sense. “Here in Houston, there are more than 20,000 dangerous gang members that are associated with cross border traffic-related
See BORDER PAGE 9A
U.S. agents will be able to be armed on Mexico’s side of the border By JULIÁN AGUILAR TEXAS TRIBUNE
After decades of forbidding foreign law enforcement officers from carrying weapons on Mexican soil, the Mexican government is on the verge of allowing U.S. agents to carry guns in places where they help speed the flow of goods between the two countries. Texas lawmakers are celebrating the move as a significant step toward increasing trade, and say Mexico is also expected to draw up new rules allowing security personnel for visiting dignitaries to obtain permits to carry weapons. In August, the Mexican and United States governments are expected to finalize details of a permitting process that will allow U.S. immigration and customs agents to carry arms while working in foreign trade zones, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said Monday. The country’s national defense agency, SEDENA, will also finalize details on how security personnel for foreign dignitaries can apply for permits. “It’s not a blanket policy for any law enforcement officials to go there [and be armed], but it’s very significant,” Cuellar said. “This law has been around for a long
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“This law has been around for a long time, so to make that change is a very sensitive matter for Mexico.”
Photo by Julian Aguilar | Texas Tribune
Gov. Greg Abbott celebrates the signing of House Bill 11 at a Texas Department of Public Safety facility in Harris County.
MEXICO ELECTIONS
LOOKS LIKE A MAJORITY
U.S. REP. HENRY CUELLAR time, so to make that change is a very sensitive matter for Mexico.” The change should boost Texas’ already robust trade relationship with Mexico, specifically in the Laredo customs district, by allowing U.S. agents working on the Mexican side of the border to pre-clear northbound cargo, sparing it from further inspections and speeding its passage. Mexican customs agents already do the same thing at the Laredo airport for southbound cargo, but the U.S. half of the pre-clearance program has been held up over the firearms issue. With the new agree-
See RULES PAGE 8A
Photo by Rebecca Blackwell | AP
Poll workers count ballots underneath a street lights, at an outdoor poling station in Chilpancingo, Guerrero State, Mexico, Sunday. Protesters burned ballot boxes in several restive states of southern Mexico in an attempt to disrupt elections, but officials said the vote was proceeding satisfactorily despite "isolated incidents."
PRI wins an unexpected 40 percent of vote By PETER ORSI AND E. EDUARDO CASTILLO ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICO CITY — Despite widespread disillusionment with his govern-
ment, President Enrique Peña Nieto on Monday emerged from midterm elections with an expected congressional majority that will let him forge ahead with his reform agenda
without compromising with opponents. With 95 percent of the ballots counted, Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and its two coalition partners
received about 40 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election. Under Mexico’s mixed system of direct and pro-
See ELECTIONS PAGE 9A
5TH U.S. CIRCUIT OF APPEALS
Court upholds Texas’ anti-abortion law By PAUL J. WEBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN — A federal appeals court upheld key parts of Texas’s strict antiabortion law on Tuesday, a decision that could leave as few as seven abortion clinics in the nation’s second largest state. The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds requirements that abortion clinics meet hospital-level operating standards, which owners of small clinics say demand millions of dollars in upgrades they can’t afford
and will leave many women hundreds of miles away from an abortion provider. But the court said abortion clinics failed to prove that the restrictions would unduly burden a “large fraction” of women. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other conservatives say the standards protect women’s health. But abortion-rights supports say the law is a thinly veiled attempt to block access to abortions in Texas, and they promised to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which temporarily sidelined the law last year.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other conservatives say the standards protect women’s health. But abortion-rights supports say the law is an … attempt to block access to abortions in Texas. “Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale,”
said Nancy Northrop, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. Texas will be able to start enforcing the restric-
tions in about three weeks unless the Supreme Court steps in and temporarily halts the decision, said Stephanie Toti, an attorney for the center. Only seven abortion facilities in Texas, including four operated by Planned Parenthood, meet the more robust requirements. The ruling, made by a three-judge panel, is the 5th Circuit’s latest decision in a lawsuit challenging some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country. The New Orleans-based court — considered one of
the most conservative in the nation — allowed Texas to enforce the restrictions when abortion providers first sued in 2013, but the U.S. Supreme Court put the law on hold last year and ordered the 5th Circuit to reconsider. Texas currently has about 17 abortion providers, down from 40 clinics in 2012. That sharp decline began after the 5th Circuit upheld another part of the 2013 law that required doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
See ABORTION PAGE 8A