Waymo expansion sparks safety concerns in Texas cities

A recent change to Texas law now requires local law enforcement to cooperate with federal

immigration enforcement.

How's that been working out?

More today on the Texas Standard.

Texas Standard is a production of KUT Austin, K-E-R-A North Texas, Houston Public Media, and

Texas Public Radio in San Antonio, with support from CASA, court-appointed special advocates,

making a difference for children in foster care.

Now matter where you are, Texas Standard time on the 13th day of March, 2026.

I'm David Brown.

Hope your Friday's off to a good start.

Don't know if you've heard about this story, but it's been making some waves some investigative

reporting from the Houston Chronicle raising questions about how closely local police officers

are working with immigration and customs enforcement agents.

According to the Chronicle data from 2025 shows that Houston police called federal authorities

154 times last year, 1,000 percent jumped from previous years.

By way of illustration, the story recounts how one man was pulled over by local police last

summer for driving with expired registration.

After a license look up, there was an unspecified immigration violation.

ICE was called and the police drove the suspect to the station to be taken into ICE custody.

Legal experts told the Chronicle that local police don't have the authority to detain

people at traffic stops and report them to ICE for administrative warrants and may be

putting their departments in legal jeopardy if they do.

In fact, in many liberal cities like Austin, there are policies restricting police cooperation

with ICE.

But a new Texas law actually requires local police to cooperate with federal immigration

authorities.

How's that going?

Mosbushel of KUT in Austin reports.

City council members opened up a recent public forum here with a line they repeat often.

In Austin, undocumented immigrants should be able to call the police without fear of being

deported.

Here's Chitovela Austin Mayor Pro Tem.

We are committed and making sure that we are keeping our immigrant community as safe

as we possibly can and so forth.

But in Texas, there are few options when it comes to stopping police from reporting

people to ICE.

In one recent case, a mother and her young daughter were deported after the mom called

local police to report a disturbance.

Stopping that kind of thing was what this meeting with Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis

was about.

I said, let me go ahead and turn it over to Chief Davis.

Thank you for being here.

This is amazing to see this show out.

In Texas, state police are empowered to arrest suspected unauthorized immigrants.

Many counties partner with ICE to get grants and funding.

Those agreements will become mandatory for all counties by the end of the year.

And Davis said Texas cities cannot prevent local officers from calling ICE if they see

fit.

The role of law that I have to follow is the chief of police here in the state of Texas.

But what we can do, what we can't do is create.

It was a tense evening.

On one side, local officials explaining that breaking state law could lead to cuts to

funding or them getting removed from office.

On the other side, many in the audience calling for resistance no matter the cost.

Robert Salter is a criminal defense lawyer who was one of the most vocal that night.

There is nothing that prevents this police chief, these city council members from refusing

to cooperate with the state.

He did public debates like this have also erupted in San Antonio, Dallas and Houston.

Democratic cities in Tennessee, Georgia and Florida are also seeing locals push back against

red state laws that mandate ICE police partnerships.

Kristen Eder is director of the Texas Immigration Law Council.

She says far more people are detained in states that have these policies.

It's not.

Visible, it doesn't present the same ways it does in Minneapolis or Chicago or Los Angeles.

And so most people, again, would have no idea that this is happening every day all around

us in a very quiet way, quiet, that is until people start shouting at that public meeting

in Austin police chief Lisa Davis announced plans to change city policy officers can still

contact ICE, but the new rules will give police higher ups a say in whether they can

hold people until ICE arrives to arrest them.

And I can tell you the priority is not waiting for ICE to respond on a civil detainer.

Officials think it's a way to thread the needle between local priorities and state law.

But after the event, immigrant advocate Cutman Zouietta said it won't help people who

fear deportation feel any better about calling the police for help.

To gain confidence, you have to earn it and nothing they're doing is giving us confidence.

She said, I'm Mosbushel in Austin.

Up to now, hailing away Mo in Texas has been pretty much an Austin thing, but that's

changing fast.

Drivers in places like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio may want to be on the lookout

for Waymo's driverless taxis.

And when I say be on the lookout, that might be advice worth taking literally given that

these robot taxis have been racking up headlines recently over safety issues.

Our tech expert Omar Guyaga has been reporting on this for CNET.

Omar always good to talk with you.

Oh, thanks for having me, David.

Appreciate it.

What do we know about Austin ISD's complaint against Waymo?

What's this about?

Yeah, there has been a national transportation safety board investigation into these incidents,

one of which happened on January 12th around Old Torf Street in 35 in South Austin.

And this is Waymo vehicles that are not stopping for school buses.

And if this were just one incident, you might be able to chalk it up to a glitch, but this

has happened 24 times that have been reported by Austin ISD.

And this is incidents of Waymo's just not stopping for school buses with flashing lights.

Arms extended, obviously in Texas, it is illegal to do that.

And it sounds as if, and in the one incident that the NTSB is citing, there was some human

error involved because a remote human that was in control of the Waymo approved that move.

So that's troubling also that there was actually a human involved and still did that.

It sounds as if it may be imitating other drivers because in some of these incidents,

there were other drivers who were doing that and the Waymo kind of followed.

But yeah, that is a huge problem and they're getting a lot of criticism for this.

And Waymo says that it's been investigating this as well as the NTSB investigating this.

Yeah, I want to talk more about Waymo's reaction, but there's a newer controversy also in

Austin.

This one caught on viral video.

Tell us more about it.

Yeah, there was a mass shooting in Austin, Texas that I'm sure we've discussed on the show.

And a viral video that was taken by someone in Austin who was on the scene showed a Waymo

vehicle that was trying to make a U-turn outside of the venue where the shooting took place.

As EMS was trying to get to the scene, they were blocking the path of the EMS.

And trying to make this slow U-turn and unsuccessfully.

So that video went viral, got a lot of attention, and now the Austin City.

The latest development is at the Austin City Council is now inviting Waymo to come explain

itself and tell them how this happened. Waymo has declined to comment on this day.

They have not spoken yet about the Austin shooting incident and the Waymo that was outside.

Now, I was just seeing something, maybe within the past 24 hours, maybe I'm misremembering,

but something about a Waymo recorded stopping in a dangerous position or potentially dangerous

position between a lowered railway crossing gate and train tracks. Have you seen this?

I have not seen that one, but we've seen lots of incidents and viral videos of just Waymo's

where the software just can't decide what to do. So it kind of stalls out. It just sits there

when it doesn't know how to proceed. I think the thinking is that it's less dangerous for us to

just pause and stop in the middle of traffic than to move forward without a clear direction

or knowing what it's doing. So we've seen lots of incidents of that of Waymo's just stopping

in the middle of traffic or in the middle of the street because they are lost or don't know

what to do next. You mentioned a couple of points here. Waymo is trying to answer these sort of

piecemeal. What is Waymo saying about the way it's what might be behind some of these things?

Because Waymo's have been a part of the Austin landscape now for quite some time.

Yeah, I mean, they have been the one that they've responded to the most was an incident that

happened in San Francisco last year. This was in December. There was a widespread power outage

and because of that power outage, a lot of Waymo's were out of commission. They just stopped

and installed in the middle of, like I said, in the middle of road. So Waymo actually answered

in front of the San Francisco city officials and what they told them was that they are updating

the Robotaxi software to better handle those type of incidents to make more decisive driving

decisions when those things happen. So they've responded to the San Francisco incident. They

have not yet responded to either of the things happening in Austin yet. But as you were explaining

the city wants Waymo to what come forward and do something similar here?

In the case of the shooting incident, the U-turn stall out, yes, they were asking Waymo to come

speak before the city council, and this just happened within the last day or two. So Waymo

has not yet responded to that or said if they're going to do that.

Hard to imagine that there won't be broader questions brought up. I'm curious about how this

criticism has affected the company more broadly. Are you sensing that the company is retrenching

a bit, stepping back, slowing expansion? It doesn't seem like it. I mean, as all this was happening,

they announced four new cities, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and in Florida, Orlando.

And they still have plans to expand in other cities, including I believe Charlotte,

Nashville, Denver, Las Vegas. They're looking to expand internationally to London and Tokyo. So I

don't think it's slowing their role at all. But I do think there are a lot of questions about,

how are they going to update this software? What are they going to do about these types of incidents?

And they're not the only ones on the road. We've got Tesla in Austin doing its robot version

of robot taxis. There are other autonomous driver services so that they're not the only ones.

And each of these has its own unique software and way of doing things. So even if you regulate one

of them and say you guys got to update your software, there's other ones on the road with from

different companies. Omar Guyaga is our go-to tech expert. We're going to link to his latest

reporting for CNET on this issue at TexasStandard.org. Omar, thanks so much.

I sure appreciate it, David. Stay safe, other.

Well, let's bring break season in Texas and those headed to the airport for travel may encounter

longer than usual security lines. And ongoing partial government shutdown has left about

050,000 transportation security administration officers nationwide working without pace since mid-February.

That's when Congress let funding for the Department of Homeland Security expire because of a

disagreement over immigration enforcement tactics. And as you likely know, Homeland Security

oversees the TSA. Last weekend, there were hours long lines at Houston's hobby airport and this

morning the security line at Austin Bergstrom stretched well outside the airport building.

While the shutdown goes on, officials at some airports are advising passengers to arrive,

three to four hours before their flights. This is a story we're going to continue to track here

at the TexasStandard, coming up on 19 minutes past the hour. And a Euler of UT's energy institute

is on deck. He's been crisscrossing the state covering the energy transition. Next stop, West Texas.

He'll take us along for the ride as the standard continues.

Support for TexasStandard comes from half-price books, a Texas-bred new-and-news bookstore,

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It's the TexasStandard. I'm David Brown. When you think of the energy industry in West Texas,

it's hard not to immediately think of oil and gas. I mean, even the global oil market sets its

prices based on something the industry calls West Texas Intermediate Crude. But if you're out that

way, head to North from Midland into the Panhandle and the Great Plains of Texas. And what you'll

discover there is that these days, more and more often, it's not fossil fuels folks are talking

about when it comes to energy production in town. That's what Andy Euler of the University of

Texas Energy Institute found, driving out West for his latest episode of The Phases and Stages

Podcast. Years ago, one of the best known musical songs of the Great Plains of Texas,

the late great Joe Ely, spoke wistfully about his relationship with a place he once called home.

Every time I started new record, I'd always come back to the flatlands. It was like a starting

place for me for some reason because I guess because of the emptiness and it made me want to fill it up.

But when Ely was talking about filling up that emptiness, I like to think that he had something

more romantic in mind than solar farms and data centers.

Circles and cycles, scenes that we've all seen for.

Let me tell you some more.

Once I got to Lubbock, it was about an hour drive on Highway 27 north to my final destination,

a little place called Cress. That's where Spanish energy company Repsol built a nearly one

million panel solar farm a couple of years ago. Lamin Wilkes grew up in Fort Worth and is now

director of asset management for Repsol renewables north America. But why Cress?

Because the the amount of land that we need to build these sites is several thousand acres.

And that's not always going to be available in it's not available in heavily populated areas.

So you're going to be in the smaller, the smaller areas, smaller cities, you know towns.

At some 637 megawatts, the Fry solar plant has more power capacity than the town has residents.

At last count, the official population here, 592.

I asked Mayor Johnny what he thought of this massive solar farm coming to town.

Even though it's built on private land, surely there's been some economic bonus as a result.

We get nothing out of it. We have nothing to do with it. We have no say over it.

All we can hope is it's done the right way and support the decisions of those that made the

decision to have those farms. The developer of the Fry solar farm applied for and received

a state tax incentive called the Texas Economic Development Act chapter 313.

It was passed in 2001. Rick Perry was governor and according to the state controller,

chapter 313 was, quote, designed to attract new businesses by offering them a 10-year limitation

on their appraised property value for a portion of the school district property tax.

In exchange for the value limitation, the business agrees to build or install new property

and create jobs in the school district. The taxes don't come to the city, so you get nothing out

of it. Those taxes go to the school districts. He says Cress ISD got close to half a million dollar

lump sum when the agreement was first signed and it's unclear how those funds were used.

Chapter 313 actually expired in 2022, but a lot of firms stocked up on those benefits when

they knew the incentive was coming to a close. Rep souls first tax year on record was 2024.

Mayor Johnny says the solar farms property value will be capped at $20 million

until those 10 years run out. He says he wishes the city could get some of those direct cash

benefits, but he understands that it's not in the cards. And he says nobody in town really talks

about it. Good or bad? One thing about a small town, people gets concerned to share their opinion

because they don't know what side the fence somebody's on one way or the other.

I'm very blunt. If somebody asks me opinion, I give it. I'm scared to death what it's going to do

to the land in the end. Lemon Wilkes at Repsol points to what's called agrovoltaics.

The dual use of land for both agriculture and power generation. We run sheep on there

to keep the vegetation moat down, basically moat the grass, but that's one thing that we're

trying to do is let the land serve multiple uses. And I did see some billboards promoting

those sheep and their ability to keep the grass trimmed. So there is something of a cottage

industry that's come out of fry solar for at least a few families, but that's definitely not

the prevailing mission of the operation. Now the ranchers who sold or leased the land got some

nice mailbox money out of the deal, and Repsol did give the city some cash for the volunteer

fire department, but Mayor Johnny just wishes his town saw more direct benefits from this land use.

Beyond maybe a new football or baseball stadium. The funny thing about this part of Texas though

is how attitudes about things like renewables are shaped. I think people here are practical before

they are political. Andy Wilkinson grew up out here and he's a writer, performer and painter. He

teaches a class at Texas Tech University called creative process. You'll have a few that have

the bumper stickers on both right and left, but when it comes to doing something with their money,

they look at it and say, you know, does it make sense to grow non-GMO corn? And if it makes sense,

I'm going to do it. And I don't care if somebody knows I'm politically on the left when I grow this

sort of stuff. And in the energy space, if there's power to be produced and money to be made

doing it, Mike Slattery at TCU says folks in this part of Texas are probably out for it.

The energy identity, obviously, of West Texas runs incredibly deep. And I think understanding and

acknowledging that is really important to understanding why Wyndon's solar have landed the way

they have in West Texas. So the infrastructure mindset, private capital, big land, energy independence,

energy security, all of those kind of underlying economics for ONG hold true for renewables.

The problem is for a lot of small town West Texas, the underlying economics doesn't really work

for folks. And Andy Wilkinson says that can breed a bit of resentment. The only animosity here is

us versus them. That means us versus Austin us versus DFW us versus San Antonio or Houston.

There's always been an attitude here that, you know, you should leave us alone because we're

different than you. And you're taking our stuff and selling it elsewhere. Why don't we get the value

of it? The direct benefits of massive infrastructure projects like Fry Solar Farm in Cress don't

make it into every household. So as more infrastructure gets built and even more electricity demand

emerges, it behooves city officials, state policy makers, and perhaps most of all industry,

to figure out a way to allow communities to truly benefit from being turned into ground zero

for power generation in the state. In the High Plains of Texas, I'm Andy Euler for the Texas

Standard. If you want to hear more about what's happening in West Texas, we'll have a link to an

extended version of this at TexasStandard.org. Today's segment's the latest from the phases and

stages podcast series produced by the Energy Institute at UT Austin. You can check out more episodes

on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or energy.utexas.edu. Just search phases and stages. In April phases and

stages marks a year of reporting on energy from across the state. Pretty soon we'll have a chance to

talk with a reporter Andy Euler about lessons he's picked up on the road, Chris Crossing the State.

If you have any questions about Texas and energy we'd love to include it in our conversation,

we send them in at our website, TexasStandard.org. Just click on the letter button up at the top of the

page. No matter where you are coming up on 29 minutes past the hour, Texas Standard Time, Texas

News Roundup, that's just around the corner. It's not just about the brisket or the ribs or the

sausage or even the sides. It's the culture and people who are passionate about it. Where there's

smoke, there's Daniel Vaughn, Texas monthly barbecue editor. Join us next Thursday on the Texas

Standard. Support for where their smoke comes from HEB.

From the Texas Newsroom, I'm Alexandra Hart, Texas's poise to break a record this year for the

largest turnover in its congressional delegation in a single cycle, either because of voluntary

retirements or re-election losses. Used in public media's Andrew Schneider reports, that will

hurt Texas's ability to address its needs in Washington. At least a dozen Texas members of the U.S.

House won't be returning to Washington next January. That means a big loss of power in an

institution where seniority matters. Craig Voldin teaches public policy and politics at the

University of Virginia. Across the board, having a large turnover is not beneficial.

From the point of view of getting things done in Congress in the near future.

One of the most significant hits to Texas Cloud and Congress will come from the retirement of

Lubbock Congressman Jody Arrington, who chairs the powerful House Budget Committee.

And one additional Houston member of Congress won't be returning next year,

with Congressman Christian Menophe and Al Green in the May primary run off against each other.

I'm Andrew Schneider in Houston. State firefighters say they have responded to requests for help on

17 wildfires in the past week. Some of the larger fires are in the panhandle where high winds and

a persistent drought have created a dangerous situation. The yellow fire north of Amarillo is

currently the largest active fire, burning more than 14,000 acres. Dallas education and city

leaders say the upcoming record school bond election could be transformative for the district.

KERA's Bill Zebel reports. The 6.2 billion dollar bond election would fund more than two dozen

brand new schools and eliminate all of the district's hundreds of portable classrooms.

Former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawling says the package would continue funding the progress

the district's been making. Now this world is moving fast and we know if you're not getting

better faster than the next guy you're getting worse. Dallas has got to come to the polls and say

this is the easiest vote we've ever made. Early voting starts April 20th for the May 2nd

election on Bill Zebel in Dallas. A female from the most endangered sea turtle species in the

world was rescued off the coast of Galveston last weekend. A bystander called the sea turtle hotline

after finding the Kimps Ridley sea turtle washed ashore covered in barnacles algae and sediment.

Christopher Marshall is the director for the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research.

We're crossing our fingers that things work out for this turtle. It's it's a mature

female Kimps Ridley sea turtle. So she's quite valuable.

The turtle is now being treated at the sea turtle hospital in Galveston with hopes she can

make a full recovery and be released back into the ocean. I'm Alexandra Hart from the Texas newsroom.

You're listening to statewide news from public radio stations across Texas.

This coverage is only possible because of support from listeners like you. You can help sustain

and grow Texas news coverage by donating to your local public radio station today.

33 minutes past the hour Texas standard time I'm David Brown calling all would be astronauts or

perhaps those more committed to terra firma. NASA's hiring new talent to rebuild its core

competencies and meet the agency's aggressive moon deadlines. But this push to staff up comes just

two months after thousands of civil servants receive their final paycheck from last year's

buyouts here to tell us more Andrea linefelder who covers space for the Houston Chronicle. Andrea

welcome. Thanks for having me. So there's an all call for folks to check out opportunities at NASA

and you know how many people NASA's hoping to hire compared with how many people left a few months

back. NASA won't give me any specific numbers. It's it's more about finding the gaps that they

have in their workforce. I'm kind of curious as to why they wouldn't just go back and call up

the folks who had been let go in the past. Do they have any explanation for that? When I asked if

people who took the buyouts would be eligible to apply they said that they'd look for people with

a broad background of experience including those who previously worked in the government which

made me believe that if you took the buyout last year you could apply. But you know I think the

well part of it was because it was told they had to reduce the workforce but also try and get

some new skill sets in there. I spoke of one guy who said the way it was handled was not very good

and it was a turbulent year for those who did take the buyout but it could give a chance to have

some people from the private sector get into NASA and kind of cross pollinate a little bit.

Very interesting. What sort of jobs are they hiring for? Well NASA has two hiring initiatives

underway right now. The first is really bringing some of his contractors in as government employees

or civil servants and and this is the idea behind this is to bring some of the core competencies

and skills at outsourced back in house. The second initiative is this NASA Force which is part

of the US Tech Force with the US Office of Personnel Management. NASA Force is really aimed at

trying to get people from the private sector to come in just for a two year term and elevate the

workforce at NASA. Let's talk a little bit more about NASA's goals for the moon because we know

that that's key to what NASA is doing right now very much in focus and maybe there are some other

projects driving this growth. What do you know about that? Yeah so NASA is preparing to send four

astronauts on the Artemis 2 mission around the moon so this will be a 10 day journey that

circles the moon but it does not land on it. They were planning to land astronauts on Artemis 3

but that was recently changed. The new administrator wants to use Artemis 3 to test hardware and

low earth orbits such as the landers and the spacesuits that are being developed by commercial

companies and then Artemis 4 will land on the moon. The new administrator Jared Isaacman he wants

to launch more often because it's been more than three years since the first time this rocket

launched and that's a long time to let your like muscle memory atrophy right. You need to do it

more often if you're ever going to be truly good at anything. So he wants to launch rockets more

often so those are his goals with that and that's what's kind of coming out through these two

different hiring initiatives. This is a little I don't know it's a little off the beaten path when

it comes to talk about NASA and hiring but you know historically speaking there's been a lot of

enthusiasm in Houston about NASA and what it sort of represents culturally they call it space

city for a reason you know they're the ass grows and all of that. Do you get a sense that people are

jazzed about the prospect of hiring at NASA? Is this is this sort of making waves? Is this

having any sort of reverberation in the city from what you can tell? You know I'm not really sure

because the circles I run in are all very heavy NASA so they already kind of work there or

are a few of jobs there so I'm not really sure this is having a verborious outside. I think I have

seen that some people are interested in space force I'm sorry NASA force excuse me but the big

problem with NASA force is that you're going to be trying to attract people from the private sector

to the government sector with government pay and so you know that might not be especially lucrative

unless you are like I've always wanted to work in NASA or Jared Isaacman is trying to frame it like

come do a duty to your country for a few years and go back to the private sector and so that's

also an interesting way to look at it but it's probably not going to pay as well. What do you see as

the big picture take away from all of this? I mean this came after a lot of disruption in NASA.

Yeah so last year you know there was this big push to shrink the federal government and NASA lost

a lot of people to that somewhere ready retire you know they got generous farewell. Others they

took the buyouts because they were afraid of being laid off through reductions and forces and so

there was a little bit of a mix it was very turbulent year. This year what I'm seeing is yeah this

this new hiring push kind of acknowledges that last year's layoffs or buyouts or what have you

they were not suited to NASA's long-term goals right you you can't reduce your staff and then

try and get to the moon before China that's just really difficult to do and so there's acknowledgement

there but also I think a lot of people are energized under Jared Isaacman you know he started in the

role in December and he's he's been moving fast he's bringing these new ideas everyone likes the

goal of getting to the moon faster and it's having more launches so there's this there's a lot of

optimism right now in the direction NASA's going but there's also you know acknowledgement that

last year's buyouts probably weren't best for the future of the agency. Andrea Linefelder

covered the space industry for the Houston Chronicle we're going to link to her reporting at

TexasStandard.org Andrea thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Support for Texas Standard comes

from Texas Mutual Insurance Company a workers compensation provider committed to handling claims

to help injured workers get back to work more at texasmutual.com slash mutual care.

Hi it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. Hey take a break from the 24 hour news cycle with us

and listen to long form interviews with your favorite authors actors, filmmakers,

comedians and musicians the people making the art that nourishes us and speaks to our times.

So listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.

It's a Texas Standard. I'm Angela Cocherica. This border city where I live El Paso is often misunderstood

by the rest of the country. It's portrayed as a no man's land and wide open border rather than

a vibrant region with a rich history of trade, migration and more. New York Times reporter

Jasmine Uyau captures the complex history in her new book El Paso by families and 100 years of

blood, migration, race and memory. One of the throughlines of the book is the 2019 hate crime

that marked El Paso when a gunman targeted people here because of who we are and where we live,

the border. Jasmine Uyau joins us now to talk about her book. Jasmine is so great to have you here

on the Texas Standard. Thank you for having me. Well let's start with what inspired you to write

this book and why now? Yeah so I was born and raised in El Paso one away for college but in 2019

as the reference this self-proclaimed white supremacist drove until El Paso from the Dallas area

and opened fire at a Walmart to cry in what he called the Hispanic invasion of Texas.

And this massacre happened three minutes away from where I went to high school or just high school

and it affected people that I knew and loved and had grown up with my best friend's own father

had been at the store that day. And so as at the time it was a national political reporter for

the Boston Globe and at the same time we were watching El Paso become this backdrop to

he's really intense battles over immigration and already the images from my hometown had been

drawing right we were seeing images of children getting separated at the border and migrants being

shackled at the Santa Fe bridge and so as I was there covering this horrific crime I was thinking

about how I wanted to tell a different story about the place where I'm from a much deeper story

and really understand this violence not as a rupture in our history but part of this much larger

legacy right a continuation of the past that hasn't really given El Paso its New Orleans

Mexican and Mexican American workers it's due in our society. Yeah very complex history and

the five families how did you choose the characters and why why these families?

I wanted to capture the the multiracial multi-ethnic flavor of the region I was looking for families

who are very emblematic of not only that migratory experience right the this ebb and flow of blue

collar workers and intellectuals and activists that had been coming and going through El Paso since

the Mexican revolution but also captured the diversity of the region that we don't often see

that even many from Therizo's don't don't often see you know like I said I was born and raised in

El Paso but there were so many things you know so many things about El Paso that I didn't know and

including its rich Chinese Mexican history so I was I was really digging for that I had been

covering immigration for more than a decade at that point in some form or another and so

some of the families I had met through that reporting and others kind of found me.

So what can the rest of the country learn from El Paso and the border residents that call

this region home especially at a time of the country is so divided?

Over the past year immigration reporters have been at the front lines of the harshest

immigration crackdown we've seen since World War II right we've been watching

masked officers apprehend people at workplaces at courthouses outside of their homes we've been

seeing you know these these raids that are sweeping up not only undocumented immigrants but people

with all kinds of legal residency and even US citizens born and raised in the United States but

you know detained are apprehended because they have been because they speak English differently

or because they look a certain way or their skin is a different color and so I think to understand

where we are today we really have to understand El Paso's history the foundations from the rhetoric

the treatment this this machinery all of it was built brick by brick decade by decade in El Paso

and so that history of violence at the border is that play here but then there's also the flip side

the resistance to that and what I call that La Conciencia Colectiva right this ethic

that has existed in El Paso for a very long time of people coming together for the collective

good and neighbors pushing back against these notions of race. Yeah the collective consciousness

and so talk about the period it's the 100 years that the book covers historically as you tell this

story. Yes yes so I found five families I really wanted it to center around the lives of five

families and how immigration has shaped their experiences and and how they in turn have shaped

El Paso and the nation right and so I felt like I had to go all the way back to the to the beginning

and that's why it spans a hundred years I wanted to tell this deeper story and so I had to go all

the way back to the beginning and I think the Mexican Revolution was a critical time to start

that story because that is when you first begin to see these large numbers of Mexicans coming across

and you first begin to hear very very similar to what we're hearing today right that these are

dangerous criminals that they are gun runners and some of them were running guns back into Mexico

from the United States to help you know rebel rebel factions of the revolution that we're fighting

but many of the people who were also getting labeled were these intellectuals who were

retiring these these bold ideas you know these bold progressive ideas at the time that we're still

debating today such as you know workers rights fair treatment of Mexican workers in the United

States fair wages and and they were organizing with workers as far as the Midwest and so that was

also cast as as as dangerous at the time yeah very very fascinating chapters and I think people

learn a lot now one review said you paint the city as a microcosm for all that is good and bad about

the United States how so well I was writing this book I was also a national political reporter for

the globe and then I moved on to cover politics for the times so I was really this book got rid

in all across the country right because I was carrying books in my my backpack and my suitcases

I was trying to read during down times at the airport I was writing in posse shops and hotel rooms

and at the same time I was going out to events I was trailing candidates I was interviewing

voters in in all different states but you know voters in all in all different states and I

and with each with each cycle immigration was just becoming a more and more urgent issue

and we were hearing candidates from one party in particular paint this really dystopian picture

of the border and and and and saying every city is a border city every every state is now a border

state but when they would talk about that you know when they would talk about that they were only

talking about heels of of migration and and and conflating immigration with crime and so I wanted

to explore that idea I am from a border city I am from Alpasso what what is that what does that

really mean like that because that's definitely not the border I grew up with or the Alpasso I grew up

with I grew up moving back and forth between Mexico and the United States going over to Huarez

for birthday parties and dentist appointments many of my friends team over every day across the

border every day to go to school with me and I wanted to capture that that that that counter image

right like that it's not so scary that things don't have to be so black and white there's a lot of

gray at the border there's a lot of complexity well finally in the little time we have what what do

you hope readers will take away from the book I hope people will take away that there's a lot of

lessons here for for Americans and and that it deserves to be at the center not the margins of our

history immigration has become this issue that now many people understand is really at the center

or at the crux of of this threat to democracy right because when when when fear the other when

Americans fear the other it's often the ground for that erosion of civil liberty civil liberties

and that is what we're seeing across the country so alpasso offers lessons on how that's happened

before and we'll be here again but it also shows that there has been a pushback to that type of

thinking jasmine will y'all as new book alpasso five families and 100 years of blood migration

race and memory is available now jasmine thank you so much for the book and for joining us here on

the standard thank you for having me

this is john petri with the typewriter rodeo and we are a group of friends who type poems on the spot

on whatever topics people want age for listener maxine yes sure there are the times of hot flashes

and wondering where those wrinkles came from overnight but there is also the firm footing of knowing

who you are where you have been and where you want to go next there is the strength that comes

from being a mother from being in touch with your inner divinity oh how you thought you knew so much

in youth and those lines they are not wrinkles they are verses in a poem they are pages in a story

that is just getting to the very best part this is john petri and you're on texas standard time

you can send us your ideas for typewriter rodeo poems at texasstandard.org and now it's time

for a look back at the week that was in texas politics joining us jasper shareer politics editor

at the texas tribune jasper welcome back thanks for having me very interesting notes from the

tribune reporting this week looking at how at least a dozen of texas is 38 seats in the us house

gonna change hands say more about this why is this something that we need to keep an eye on

yeah there were so this is a number that was solidified with Dan Crenshaw and Tony Gonzalez

going down in their primaries you know on top of a number of retirements that of folks voluntarily

leaving the delegation main reason this matters is power in congress rests pretty much entirely

on seniority you know how long you've been there it determines you know the type of committee assignments

you get so nearly a third of the delegation at least changing hands just means lots more political

neophytes coming in on capital hill representing texas and you could see the clout of the delegation

definitely being diminished well speaking of newcomers on the national scene we have

that democratic nominee for senate uh james taleriko he's been facing some backlash from a comment he

made back in twenty twenty one god is non binary what is the context of that comment yeah this is

sort of the the regular ebb and flow of politics is you know once the a member of either party

becomes the nominee then you know quickly they sort of flip the switch there they've been trying to

get their parties approval and then suddenly they're facing attacks from the other side of the aisle

that's what's happening with taleriko here and he says basically his his comment about

god is non binary was intended to be provocative but his point was basically that that god is beyond

gender that and he was making a point about supporting trans kids so you know it'll be interesting

to see how taleriko navigates attacks like this over the next several months yeah republicans

definitely trying to make some hay over it uh want to turn our focus to a story we reported it was

in the texas tribune as well dilland bedur of inside climate news really sounding an alarm bell

about water availability in corpus christie governor abit weighs in uh apparently after hearing the

report and saying that the state might have to quote micromanage and run the city is that a real

thing yeah i mean it he didn't he didn't add much clarity beyond just threatening a general

takeover but i think you know his point was that this isn't just a um situation of of happenstance

or bad luck for the city he was making the case that you know basically there the yes the region

has seen this big industrial boom that is um you know stuck up a lot of water usage but

the state has also been giving the city money to try to address the problem and

the allegation is that this is a crisis brought on by delay not taking action to bring water

solution so abit we'll see if he actually follows through on that threat but looks like some sort of

state takeover action could be coming well it links to all these stories in more texas standard

dot o r g jas per share politics editor for the texas tribune jasper have a great weekend

you two david thanks so much and you are listening to the texas standard

seen on our screens and social media feeds war in the middle east can feel far away

but for many texas it isn't distant at all i'm well done bar with the texas standard

as us airstrikes on aron continue part of a widening middle east conflict being carried out

alongside israel we ask texas how they're processing the moment especially those with ties to the

region hi my name is nilafar i'm an aronian american living in houston for folks like nilafar

watching events unfold from half a world away the emotions can be complicated fear for loved ones

mixed with uncertainty about what the future might hold for aron itself i mean first of all i

also want to say that of course uh those of us who have alien friends there are terrified

it's nothing compared to the terror of actually living there while the bombing of iran is going

on nilafar also points out that aronian voices especially those inside the country aren't often

heard clearly in the global conversation about what's happening and among aronians living abroad

there's no single unified perspective in fact she says the reaction is often deeply

complicated the aronian diaspora very divided and it's hard to understand what people in the

country actually want it was overall pretty clear that a lot of iranians actually believe

of course in iran did want some kind of intervention to happen but that is a measure of their

desperation does not mean that you know we as a whole want this to go on and on and as the conflict

continues frustration is also growing over the way the campaign against aron is unfolding

and over the government's leading it the u.s and israel i could not think of two worse

administrations to carry this out like two administrations more careless of human life

there's also the weight of history for many aronians this moment doesn't feel isolated it's

part of a long and painful cycle of conflict stretching back decades for iranians who are

over about forty six years of age this is the third war they've had to live through

the first was the iran iraq war where the u.s helped iraq the second was last year is a

twelve day war and of course this still even in a moment defined by fear and uncertainty

nila far is still holding on to a fragile sense of hope about what might come next for those of

us who are you praying for this and our bleak hope is that the administrations fear of high

gas prices in an election year will win out and we're still holding on to hope the sum outence

into a transition of a democratic iran hope bleak yes but hope nonetheless if you have family ties

to aron israel or anywhere else in the region or if this conflict is weighing heavily on you here

in texas we'd like to hear from you you can share your thoughts at texasstandard.org slash talk

i'm well done bar and this is the talk of texas we're glad music means we're out of time for

today's big broad cast but the news continues twenty four seven texasstandard.org on behalf of

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you can find us wherever you get your podcasts i'm michael marks talk to you tomorrow