Opinion

As a lifelong advocate for education, I have the privilege of leading Brownsville ISD, where my focus is on providing students with the resources they need to pursue fulfilling careers. In recent years, I have become increasingly optimistic about the transformation taking place in our local economy. I’m particularly excited about the wealth of opportunities for new career paths emerging right here in the Rio Grande Valley — opportunities that our students and families deserve.

A mobile phone company is running ads on television and online streaming channels promoting an app that can provide immediate language translation using voice-recognition software. Such technology could help address the growing need and complexity of dealing with people who don’t speak English in our legal and immigration courts as well as other government functions.

America is crying out for a king in 2024, whether by election or by coup, it seems. The new royalist MAGA monarchy party is willing to do it either way, as long as it gets what it wants.

Letters to the editor published in The Monitor, Valley Morning Star and The Brownsville Herald during the week of Oct. 14-19, 2024.

One year ago, Hamas launched an unprovoked attack on our closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.

Nearly one-fourth of American adults — nearly 60 million people — have been diagnosed with mental illness. More than one in five U.S. youths ages 13-18 have had a seriously debilitating mental health issue at some point in their lives. This information is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which estimates more than half of treatable mental health illnesses are never diagnosed or treated; the number could be more than 70% for clinical depression.

After three days of picketing, members of the International Longshoremen’s Association have returned to work.

As county judge of Cameron County, I have had the privilege of witnessing the profound impact that NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG project has had on our entire Rio Grande Valley community. In my 20 years as a public official, our ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of life in the Rio Grande Valley have always prioritized the region’s economic sustainability. The $18.4 billion committed to the Rio Grande LNG project (Phase 1) is currently the largest private energy infrastructure investment in the United States and represents a transformative opportunity for all the residents or our region.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton continues to use taxpayers’ money to clog our courts with lawsuits seeking to impose conservative policies through judicial fiat rather than through the legislative process prescribed by our Constitution. Paxton brags that he has sued the Joe Biden administration nearly 80 times in the past 3½ years, seeking to overrule laws enacted by our Congress and policies that apply and clarify them. He was just as active against the Barack Obama administration, suing that administration more than 20 times during the two years his tenure coincided with Obama’s.

On Aug. 6, when a federal court canceled the permits for three methane gas export projects in South Texas, we celebrated the result of years of fighting a powerful fossil fuel industry that would pollute our community and desecrate sacred ancestral lands and pristine coastal habitats. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency charged with assessing the safety of proposed LNG facilities, had failed to conduct a thorough review. It must soon go back and consider the significant harms to the environment and people living near these projects.