Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

A House committee looking into allegations of rampant abuse in youth prisons asked the attorney general's office on Monday to determine whether Gov. Rick Perry had the authority to appoint a special master for the Texas Youth Commission.

The constitutional rights of youths detained at the Evins Regional Juvenile Center in Edinburg have been violated, the Department of Justice has found.

Nearly a decade after voters approved home equity loans in Texas, a high-stakes legislative fight is brewing over some of the major consumer safeguards in the law.

In a school district with the region's highest percentage of children with limited English skills, a rift has emerged over the best way to educate them.

All but one of the 31 Texas senators have signed a letter calling for an investigation into the terminated contract between the state and Accenture, the company contracted to process child health insurance and other social services paperwork for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

A modest personal state income tax would support public schools, return property tax dollars to homeowners and ensure everyone pays their fair share.

Governor's proposal for new administrator inadequate to deal with spreading Texas Youth Commission scandal.

Two years after reforms, the state is once again straining with too little money to handle too many children.

Undocumented immigrants are among the poorest groups in the nation because they don't have access to financial aid to go to college, can't get higher-paid legal assistance and are vulnerable to exploitation by employers because they live in fear of being reported to immigration officials and deported.

One thing is certain, experts at the University of Texas at El Paso agree: Poor people are not to blame for poverty. "You can't say it's poor people's fault, because if you're born into poverty, it's going to be harder to get out of it," UTEP economist Tom Fullerton said. "You're not going to get as many opportunities as if you're born on Rim Road."

Although they faced strict Border Patrol agents and the deep, cold currents of the Rio Grande, the worst part of the trip was crossing the train yard that stretches through South El Paso. There, Belmontes' young feet ran past vagrants and climbed between the cars of slowly rumbling trains. Once aboard, she'd jump down on the other side and sprint toward Segundo Barrio and a day of helping her mother clean homes.

While the border provides refuge to many immigrants who seek better economic situations, it is also plagued with disparities in education, infrastructure, government funding and high levels of unemployment and underemployment when compared to the rest of Texas and the nation, according to a study by the Texas state comptroller's office.

Economists, looking for links between language and wages along the Texas-Mexico border, found that laborers who speak English tend to earn at least 5 percent more than those who speak only Spanish.

Officials say El Pasoans are settling for low-paying wages because they want to stay home, one factor that keeps the city one of the poorest in the United States. The "mija factor," the cultural pull that keeps El Pasoans in El Paso despite wage disparities, does force college-educated professionals to take jobs that they are overqualified for - jobs that they didn't initially pursue.

As PlayStations, iPods and Nike Shox grow in popularity, parents like Viri Esparza find themselves doing more to keep up. Esparza, who remembers receiving gifts such as a bicycle and a camera as a child, works side jobs and sets aside money from her paychecks to make sure her son and nephew get certain popular items.

About 82 percent of the nearly 20,000 students at UTEP are from El Paso County high schools, say university officials. The resistance by some El Pasoans to leaving town for better jobs or other opportunities, and the desire of many parents to keep their children nearby, is one of the reasons experts say El Paso has not achieved its full economic potential.

The word "poor" evokes the image of a homeless man in tatters, coaxing change from motorists with a loyal dog at his side, clutching a flagrantly misspelled sign. Or perhaps, the image is that of a family of recent immigrants living in a mobile home with no running water in a dusty, desolate colonia. But those are not the faces of the poor in El Paso, where stereotypes are shattered and redefined.

Life has not been kind to Valerie Estrada, who, at times, worked various jobs to sustain her family, sought refuge in transitional living centers and government-funded housing, and found herself asking for payday loans just to make ends meet. A single mother of four children until a month ago, Estrada takes pride in her efforts to secure a better life for her family.

According to a survey conducted by Belden Associates, the majority of low-income El Paso families are bargain-hunters -- in the sense that they shop at Wal-Mart. It is estimated that at least 200,000 El Pasoans live in poverty. Known for having lower prices than its competitors, Wal-Mart draws 85 percent of El Paso families earning less than $25,000 annually, the survey found.

According to economics experts, people like Hinojosa -- who believe El Paso's higher-than-average poverty rate does not affect them -- are just plain wrong. "People who are well above the poverty line, the middle class and the wealthy, should care about the poor because it affects them directly," said Tom Fullerton, a professor of economics at UTEP.