Texas borderlands too often a photo op for politicians pushing stereotypes

Ubiquitous political border tours fixate on immigration, missing the complex character and needs of the region

Edward Marquez, the father of my classmate when I was growing up, became a border community hero in 1994 when, as a state district judge from El Paso, he initiated a rare legal maneuver that resonated along the Texas-Mexico border. Fed up with a long history of disparate funding and state services to border communities from the state capital in Austin, he convened a court of criminal inquiry - a weapon in the legal arsenal that is available when a judge has evidence that a prosecutor fell short of pursuing a criminal case and justice was not being served.

Related: Welcome to the US southern border: same country, different planet