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A McAllen resident and former Army corporal received the Congressional Gold Medal. CHANNEL 5 NEWS talked with the hometown hero a few days ago as he prepared for the trip to the nation’s capital. The memories are still vivid. Former Army Corporal Eugene Gutierrez said, “At Anzio, I had three of my buddies who were in my platoon that were killed. … At night, we would be out in the field scouting, guarding, and keeping Germans from infiltrating into our zone.” He was a member of the U.S. Canadian 1st Special Service Force, made up of 900 Americans and 900...

A former state trooper who was seeking election to the Precinct 1 constable’s seat was arrested Monday on money laundering charges after law enforcement officers found more than $1 million packed inside suitcases stored in his car’s trunk.

Texas legislators moved last month to try to include immigration enforcement in the responsibilities of local police departments, but area officials insist the differences among communities would make it almost impossible to uniformly implement those laws. In Brownsville, a losing competition for staff with the U.S. Border Patrol and the city’s daily flow of legal and illegal immigrants have resulted in a police department with barely enough personnel to carry out its regular duties. State Rep. Frank Corte Jr., R-San Antonio, and state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Austin, have sought an opinion from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on whether the...

DALLAS — What do "black hole," "angel food cake," and "devil's food cake" have in common? They're all racist terms, says a Dallas County, Texas, official. A county commissioners' meeting this week over traffic tickets turned into a tense discussion over race when one commissioner said the county's collections office was like a certain astronomical phenomenon. "It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole," Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said during the Monday meeting. One black official demanded an apology, and Commissioner John Wiley Price, who also is black, said that type of language is unacceptable. At...

MERCEDES - Deputies arrested two illegals in connection with a Mercedes murder. Jaime Ibarra and Juan Pineda are each being held on a million dollar bond. They're accused of killing Saul Garmendia. Sheriff Lupe Trevino says Pineda and the victim were fighting over a woman. The two suspects are now in county jail. The sheriff says they're the latest example of rising crime rate involving illegals. And he says it's creating an overcrowding problem in his jail. "I've got between 29 to 31 percent illegal immigrants in my county jail that we're holding on state charges," Trevino explains. He's seen...

MISSION - A police chase Wednesday morning that ended with a mother and her two young children in a canal underscored yet again the danger human smugglers pose to motorists. Authorities reported no serious injuries, but the crash near Farm-to-Market Road 495 and North Stewart Road illustrated the challenges coyotes pose to the officers charged with catching them. Mission police started the chase on westbound FM 495 after a man driving a truck ran a red light near Stewart, Mission police Chief Leo Longoria said. The man refused to pull over and turned north onto Bryan Road and then drove...

EDINBURG - An argument about a wandering dog led to one man stabbing another near a Mercedes home known as the "Castle House," Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said Wednesday. Miguel Lopez, 23, was arraigned Wednesday on a charge of first-degree felony murder and ordered jailed in lieu of a $1 million bond. Federal authorities also have placed a hold on the Reynosa man because he is an illegal immigrant. If Lopez posts bond he will be released to U.S. Border Patrol and held until trial, Treviño said. Lopez faces between five years and life in prison if convicted. Lopez...

How expensive is illegal immigration for the U.S.? The answer may depend on who you ask. Some argue that, overall, illegal immigrants help our economy while others insist their presence creates a fiscal deficit in the billions. Recently, Action 4 News gained exclusive access and insight on the costs of detaining and deporting illegal immigrants. It is just after 4 a.m. But already the nation's largest detention center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (or ICE) in Raymondville, Texas is bustling with activity. The crew has been preparing for hours to deport a group of 132 Hondurans to their country....

McALLEN — Assaults against local U.S. Border Patrol agents have increased during the last two months — a sign, agency leaders say, that they are making progress in the battle against illegal immigration. Since early October, agents have reported 21 assaults in the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, spanning from Brownsville into Starr County. The attacks ranged from pushing to rock throwing, local agency spokesman Oscar Saldaña said Wednesday. Last year, local agents suffered 113 assaults total. If the trend continues, there will be an increase of about a dozen assaults next year. The rise mirrors numbers nationwide. Since...

EDINBURG — Isidro Aguilera-Zuniga traveled hundreds of miles from Central Mexico on the promise of a good job packing vegetables for $8.75 an hour. Instead, he was saddled with physically demanding work for lower wages. Rosa Luna grew up on the promise of bountiful employment for hard-working U.S. citizens, but found agricultural companies doing anything they could to drive her away. For years, Mexican migrant laborers like Aguilera-Zuniga and U.S. agricultural workers such as Luna have sparred for jobs, competed for wages and attacked each other from opposing sides of the labor market. For now, though, the two have found...

Immigrant parents who fear deportation are "on the run" and are withdrawing their children from public schools, Irving ISD Superintendent Jack Singley said Wednesday. Mr. Singley estimated that 90 children have withdrawn from school in the last week because of the deportation fears in Irving, where a police program has prompted warnings by the Mexican Consulate. The superintendent hopes their parents will re-enroll them somewhere else. Also Online Mexico to bolster immigrant defense "My concern is that some of them won't put those children in school anywhere because they're on the run," he said. "They get this notion that someone...

BROWNSVILLE -- Mayors along the Texas-Mexico border have begun a quiet protest of the federal government's plans to build a fence along the border: Some are refusing access to their land. Mayors in Brownsville, Del Rio and El Paso have denied or limited access to some parts of their city property to Department of Homeland Security workers assigned to begin surveys or other preliminary work on the fence Congress has authorized to keep out illegal immigrants. Eagle Pass has denied a request from federal officials to build a portion of the wall within its city limits. Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada...

Angered over a record number of recent deportations in Irving, more than 1,000 protesters waved U.S. flags and chanted "We are America" as they rallied Wednesday night at City Hall. Demonstrators called for Irving officials to put a moratorium on turning over suspected illegal immigrants to federal officials until immigration laws are reformed nationally. They also urged people to call Mayor Herbert Gears and ask him to stop deporting people from the city's jail. Also Online Video: Gary Reaves reports "We need to raise our voice and we need to ask for changes about the things we don't like here,"...

Mexican Consul Enrique Hubbard Urrea has issued an unusual warning to immigrants from his country: Avoid the city of Irving. Deportations in this city have skyrocketed in the last several months – from 262 in all of 2006 to 1,338 through mid-September. "In this city, one has to be extra careful," he told Al Día . "And if possible, avoid going through there, because we suspect, and with good reason, that people are being detained simply because of their appearance." At least 1,600 people have been turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement since June 2006 as part of the...

A native Texan spent the night in the Arlington Jail, missed her children's first day of school and feared being deported after authorities mistook her for an illegal immigrant. Alicia Rodriguez, an accountant and mother of three, has the same name and date of birth as a woman deported to Mexico three times. "I was told I was waiting for an [immigration] officer or Border Patrol officer to interview me and then move me to another location. It was very scary," the Mansfield woman said. Arlington and federal immigration officials say they made a mistake and apologized. "This is very...

McALLEN — Sprawled across a concrete picnic table at the center of the park, a group of young men recently arrived from Honduras and Nicaragua to share a beer and discuss where they might find a room for the night. The conversation drifts to the availability of work in New Orleans before a police car passes through the park’s parking lot, turning everyone silent. “They’re always coming in here and giving us trouble,” one man, who declined to give his name, said in Spanish. Over the last year, Municipal Park — located in central McAllen off 23rd Street — has...

State troopers are investigating a deadly chase in Starr county that claimed the lives of two people. It happened south of San Isidro. We're here near the accident scene. A spokesman for the highway patrol says this is where two people died right around lunch time today. We understand a Constable was trying to pull over a stolen truck carrying illegal's , on FM 2294, when the truck collided with a car here at the intersection of Delmita road. An illegal immigrant was killed and a local woman by the name of Alicia Fuentes also died. Four other illegals were...

WESLACO - People living along the Rio Grande River often see illegals crossing the border. "All of a sudden you see five, ten, sometimes fifteen, twenty people," says Rosalinda Garza. She's lived along the river all her life. She tells us, "They pack them into vans and the vans would just go shoom." "One after the other. And then within 15 or 20 minutes, those vehicles were back." Like Garza, many are concerned about illegal trafficking. "There's danger along the river, especially at night," says Umberto "Bird" Trevino. NEWSCHANNEL 5 decided to get a firsthand look at what people living...

TORNILLO, Texas – Tony Rancich believes that "in life you succeed through relationships." That's been the family's mantra for years "because no matter how smart you are, ... you always need cooperation from your neighbors," says Mr. Rancich as he walks through his family's 1,700-acre pecan ranch along the U.S.-Mexico border southeast of El Paso. Walls and fences are not the answer, he says. Just outside his property line, Louisiana native Bob Masling is on patrol in his old SUV – a .45 pistol on his hip and high-powered weapons in the back seat. "We're being invaded by wetbacks, and...

MISSION - A homeowner found a group of illegals in his kitchen. "One of them ran over and tried to hide in my sister's room," says the man, who didn't want to be identified. Border Patrol agents had followed a suspicious van into the Mission neighborhood. Seventeen illegals inside the van scattered into the neighborhood. A nearby elementary school went into lockdown as a precaution. Some of the illegals ran into neighborhood homes. A man, we'll call "Emilio," says his dog noticed them first and started barking. That's when Emilio got out his bedroom and found the people. "They were...