A year ago, 40 men died at a Juarez detention center in one of the deadliest incidents in Mexico involving immigrants. An examination by @ProPublica/@TexasTribune shows that the fire was foreseeable and the result of shifts in U.S. border policy.
propublica.org/article/us-imm… 2/During his presidency, Donald Trump upended decades of asylum law by striking deals with Mexico that forced those seeking refuge to wait south of the border. And citing the pandemic, he used Title 42 to order border officials to quickly expel migrants.

1/ In the past 6 decades, #Texas has experienced 19 mass shootings that have killed 200 people & wounded +230.
Yet state leaders have repeatedly batted away measures that would limit access to guns, opting instead to ease restrictions.
propublica.org/article/mass-s… 2/ An analysis by @propublica @thetexastribune of hundreds of bills filed in past 6 decades found that at least 2 dozen measures would have prevented people from legally obtaining the weapons, including assault rifles & large-capacity magazines, used in 7 of the mass shootings.

🧵1/ For better — and worse — there’s a lot going on in Texas and often what happens here has implications for the rest of the country. This is why @ProPublica & @TexasTribune joined forces to form an investigative team led by @zahiratorres.
Here’s some of what we did last year: 2/ In 2021, Gov. Abbott launched #OperationLoneStar, the state’s latest iteration of a border crackdown, arguing the federal government failed to do its job so TX needed to step in to stop the smuggling of people/drugs.
@lomikriel & I teamed up w/ @MarshallProj to look into it.

For 9 months, @ProPublica @TexasTribune @MarshallProject have been trying to figure out what has been accomplished under Gov. @GregAbbott_TX newest multi-billion dollar border op.

Instead, we found limited data that makes it *very* difficult to measure results. For example: Abbott and other officials frequently brag about the results of #OperationLoneStar, like:
-arrests
-pounds of drugs seized
-undocumented immigrants the state referred to the feds

Portable generators are 1 of the most dangerous consumer products on the market.

They can emit as much carbon monoxide as 450 cars

Kill an avg of 70 people in the U.S./yr

Injure thousands

The government has known about the danger for decades yet deaths continue. THREAD 2/ We found that the February winter storm that left millions of Texans without power resulted in the largest CO poisoning event in recent history.
+1,400 residents went to the hospital.
At least 17 died — including 10 as a result of portable generators. propublica.org/article/carbon…

(THREAD) Newly obtained 911 audio reveals harrowing details of an agonizing nearly 3-hour long wait where half a family was found dead after being poisoned by #carbonmonoxide. At its peak, millions of households were left without power across Texas. 2/ In the middle of a massive winter storm, Houston firefighters responded to a call about a family fainting but left when no one answered the door.

Since there’s a lot of talk around #Texas building its own #borderwall after @GregAbbott_TX announced his plans, I thought it would be a good opportunity to go over what @jinatx and I found last year via @texastribune @propublica
texastribune.org/2021/06/16/tex… Part of the problem is a lot of it is privately owned along a winding river.
Fisher built 3 mi on the banks of the Rio Grande. More than a year later, it still has serious erosion issues (disputed by the builder) and is at the center of lawsuits.
propublica.org/article/he-bui…

There's a lot on #immigration right now so I went back to look at what I have written. I share this sample of stories because I think with immigration, in particular, often times we find ourselves writing the same stories over and over. How do we move beyond that? Can we? 2014: Federal officials tell former AZ Gov. Jan Brewer that +1,000 minors would be transferred to Arizona over the weekend and held in a converted Border Patrol facility in Nogales.tucson.com/news/local/bor…

NEW: @JinATX and I found that CBP awarded at least 12 TX #borderwall contracts without 1st owning all the land, racking up millions in delay costs.

Then the agency used the delays on those contracts in court as justification to immediately take the land.
propublica.org/article/texas-… Building a border wall was one of Trump’s core campaign promises. The instruction to CBP was to get as much done as possible. The problem is that in Texas most of the riverfront land is privately owned.

1/ Steve Bannon and other associates were charged w/ fraud related to @WeBuildtheWall, an org that aims to build parts of the border wall.
.@JinATX, @LChurchilll & I have been closely following a sec of fencing that could collapse b/c of erosion. @WeBuildTheWall supported it. 2/ Leaders of @WeBuildtheWall’s online fundraising campaign worked closely with the construction company @FisherSandG, who has two private wall projects in New Mexico and Texas.
Fisher was not involved or mentioned in today’s indictment.
propublica.org/article/a-priv…

Over the weekend, @readonaldtrump renounced a 3-mile private border wall in South Texas, and @USAttyPatrick called it a “vanity project” & a “scam.” 1/8
propublica.org/article/trump-… (Know anything about #borderwall contracts, pending investigations or the inner workings of the IBWC? please reach out to us: jeremy.schwartz@propublica.org / perla.trevizo@propublica.org) 2/8