The QueQue: Streetcar desires, Perry Poppin’, Climatologists want to correct data twisters

“The most troubling documents indicate that State Department officials sought to help TransCanada by providing information about State’s internal thinking and by coaching TransCanada on what to say,” Friends of the Earth wrote in a statement.

The pipeline is now at a critical stage in the approval process, heading into public hearings over the next month to determine whether the project is in the national interest. State officials will hear from the public in Austin today at UT’s Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium (noon-3:30pm, 4pm-8pm, 2313 Red River Street). Watch Newsmonger (blogs.sacurrent.com) for coverage of today’s hearing.

Border Patrol represents a ‘culture of cruelty?’

No More Deaths, an Arizona-based immigrant-rights group, has released a lengthy report detailing years of interviews with migrants across the Southwest border, documenting what they call an “institutional culture of abuse” within the U.S. Border Patrol.

The report, titled “A Culture of Cruelty,” is based on three and a half years worth of interviews the group conducted with immigrants deported to Mexico by Border Patrol, uncovering what they claim are some 30,000 documented cases of abuse. The allegations range from immigrants being denied food and water to money, cell phones, and other personal property being stolen from them prior to deportation. Some of the more alarming stories detail instances supposed physical and psychological abuse, and the group claims immigrants are sometimes denied much-needed medical care. The report contains stories of families separated in Border Patrol custody, some deported to Mexican cities reeling from drug violence in the dark of night. The group, which leaves food and water along the punishing desert trails frequented by migrants, also insists that Border Patrol routinely slashes the water bottles and dumps the food left for immigrants along the trails.

“It is clear that instances of mistreatment and abuse in Border Patrol custody are not aberrational. Rather, they reflect common practice for an agency that is part of the largest federal law enforcement body in the country,” the report authors wrote. “By this point, the overwhelming weight of the corroborated evidence should eliminate any doubt that Border Patrol abuse is widespread.” •