Here are the stories on Texas Standard for Tuesday, March 2, 2021.
El Paso Receives Asylum-Seekers
As part of President Biden’s effort to unwind the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” program, some asylum seekers with pending cases are now being allowed into the United States to wait out their immigration court proceedings. As KERA’s Mallory Falk reports, a small group crossed from Ciudad Juarez into El Paso on Friday.
Biden Administration Immigration Goals
The Biden administration has announced families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border during President Trump’s administration will continue to be reunited. But Biden administration officials are also looking to Mexico’s government for help. Nick Miroff, who covers immigration enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security for The Washington Post, talks to the Standard.
Army Sexual Harassment and Assault
Last November, the Army admitted that its sexual assault and harassment prevention program is broken. Now one elite Army unit is taking matters into its own hands, asking soldiers and survivors for ideas to fix it. Texas Public Radio’s Carson Frame reports for the American Homefront Project.
Storm Audio Postcard
Two weeks after Texas’ severe winter storm, Natasha Barthelemy is still without a home. And it’s not the first time she’s lost her house to a natural disaster. Barthelemy told her story to KERA’s Alejandra Martinez at a La Quinta hotel in North Dallas, where she and her family are staying.
There’s just something about holding a tightly wrapped pack of trading cards, ripping it open, popping that stale stick of gum in your mouth, and leafing through a new set of cards. That said, the next big thing in trading cards may not resemble that experience in the slightest. The Texas Standard’s Michael Marks has more.
Memory Bears
The pandemic has kept families apart from their loved ones as they die in hospitals. On the Texas-Mexico border, some find comfort in so-called “memory bears,” teddy bears for grieving families handcrafted by a woman in Juarez. KTEP’s Angela Kocherga reports.
Enslaved People Escaping to Mexico
Black History Month, which just wrapped up, focuses on the suppressed narratives of Black people in this country. One part of that under-reported history is that there was an underground railroad that ran southbound through Texas to freedom in Mexico. It’s a story some are familiar with and Texas Standard has highlighted before through the work of Reynaldo Leaños Jr. NPR correspondent John Burnett has been exploring the new research on this.
Cooler temperatures have returned to the Lone Star State, but nothing compared to the likes of the freeze of a few weeks ago, something many Texans are still dealing with weeks later. But what of the political repercussions? Will Texans remember when they head to the ballot box in 2022 and 2024? For more we’re talking with Alex Samuels, a politics reporter for the website Five-Thirty-Eight.
All this and Texas News Roundup, plus Social Media Editor Wells Dunbar with the talk of Texas.
