Leslie Rangel

He offered UT a $100,000 endowment for Hispanic scholars. Texas Exes denied it After years trying to create a scholarship at UT's College of Pharmacy for Hispanic scholars, Texas Exes denied it because of its diversity focus, a donor said.

“I was a poor Chicano boy from El Paso,” Acosta said. “I made my name in toxicology at the University of Texas.”

Did you know it's been 2 years since SB17, Texas' anti-DEI campus law went into effect?

I'm working on a survey of LGBTQ+ orgs affected by this law, for @thebarbedwire.com. If you were part of, or know of a campus org that shut down or was forced to change goals due to SB17, please get in touch.

Nearly a Million Texas Students Have an Undocumented Parent. Who Will Protect Them When ICE Comes? Kindergarteners and college freshman alike are heading back to school as ICE agents disappear undocumented families.

When immigration agents began disappearing the families of kindergarteners, @iamleslierangel.bsky.social reported on the nearly one million students in Texas who have at least one undocumented parent.

Somehow, amid the cruelty, Leslie made this piece about hope.

thebarbedwire.com/2025/08/14/m...

A Disabled Child’s Mom Reported Him Missing. He Was Locked Away by Federal Immigration Authorities for 48 Days. Emmanuel, a 15-year-old who has an intellectual disability, walked away from his mom’s fruit stand in October. Houston Police called ICE.

She spent weeks reporting out the story of Emmanuel Gonzalez, a 15-year-old with an intellectual disability who walked away from his mom’s fruit stand. Though his mom filed a missing person’s report within hours, Houston Police called ICE instead of reuniting them.

thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/24/d...

Our deputy managing editor @iamleslierangel.bsky.social has cemented herself as a force for good in the world through her investigative chops, deep well of empathy, and passion for telling hard truths — about abortion, growing up Latina in Texas, and immigration.

Gutsy, Fearless Journalism Isn’t Dead. Don’t Let Bari Weiss Convince You It Is. Gutsy, fearless journalism is alive and thriving. Look back with us at the hopeful and heartbreaking reporting from The Barbed Wire in 2025.

It’s time for @thebarbedwire.com’s Best of 2025! 🫡 thebarbedwire.com/2025/12/23/2...

Leslie Rangel: @iamleslierangel.bsky.social
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The 19th: @19thnews.org
The Barbed Wire: @thebarbedwire.com

At the University of Texas, in journalism school, is where @iamleslierangel.bsky.social learned about La Matanza, or the “The Massacre,” a brutal period of violence against Mexicans in Texas from 1910 to 1920. U.S. Army soldiers and the Texas Rangers lynched hundreds Mexicans during La Matanza.

I Learned a Whitewashed Version of Texas History in School. Journalism Taught Me the Stories That Got Left Out. As a Latina and a child of immigrants, a college journalism class taught me there was more to being Texan than the myths we tell ourselves.

Beautiful essay from @iamleslierangel.bsky.social about the pressure to assimilate in the Dallas suburbs, about the whitewashed version of history taught in Texas classrooms — and about how journalism let’s us evolve.

thebarbedwire.com/2025/09/16/j...

love editing @iamleslierangel.bsky.social because there is always a chance that one of us or @oliviamesser.bsky.social will cry. which we did here. because journalism matters, our words matter, and who writes them matters. we will keep taking that seriously at @thebarbedwire.com

Hands down, the best piece on the swirl of events around Rep. Nicole Collier, the threat to arrest her, and the wellspring of support that has emerged.

From @thebarbedwire.com's @oliviamesser.bsky.social and @iamleslierangel.bsky.social

A ‘Shameful’ Legacy: Texas Has Officially Opened an ICE Detention Facility at Site of WWII Internment Camp Camp East Montana is now the largest immigrant detention facility in U.S. history, but it’s just one of 19 sites that will add a total of 37,649 new beds for ICE detainment — a 105% increase in the st...

Latest from @iamleslierangel.bsky.social —

The new ICE detention facility at Fort Bliss is the largest in U.S. history. It’s also one of five sites where Texas held detainees of Japanese descent — including American-born civilians — during World War II.

thebarbedwire.com/2025/08/18/t...

Nearly a Million Texas Students Have an Undocumented Parent. Who Will Protect Them When ICE Comes? Kindergarteners and college freshman alike are heading back to school as ICE agents disappear undocumented families.

Chilling story from @iamleslierangel.bsky.social about the Texas families living in fear as they head back to school.

~15% of K-12 students in Texas — or 890,000 children — have at least one undocumented parent, and an estimated 111,000 Texas kids are undocumented

thebarbedwire.com/2025/08/14/m...

Wow. This complement made my year. Late to it bc I’m mostly on threads these days but appreciate the shoutout 🙏🏽

Here’s some of my work: thebarbedwire.com/author/leslie/

📣 TX Journos:Want to join our @thebarbedwire.com email list for pitch calls? We’re looking for hot takes, enterprise, investigative and culture stories others don’t deem “their target audience.” (I’m looking at you, journalists of color) DM me!

CC: @oliviamesser.bsky.social @carakelly.bsky.social

Texas is About to Ban All THC. Buy Your Gummies Now In a bold stand, Texas lawmakers decide that pain relief is just too fun to be legal.

The Texas House just gave a big yeehaw to banning all consumable hemp products that contain THC, because nothing says “freedom” like government micromanaging your gummies.

I brought this slack msg to an AU dean in June. she knew I filed a Title IX report for Olivia & the researcher. I begged her to shut it down, told her sexual assaults had happened after drinks. she told me there was nothing she could do. it was sent to 9 female interns. www.cjr.org/feature-2/we...

Star journalist Wesley Lowery faced Title IX complaints before leaving American University Lowery resigned after allegations that he made inappropriate sexual comments in meetings with students and unwanted sexual advances toward journalists, records show.

and on that note… someone please ask @washingtonpost.com why they cut Olivia out of their version of this story hours before they published? they had all the same reporting. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Thank you to these women who spoke up. Proud to call some of them my friends ❤️‍🩹😔

This Texas Drag Queen Wants to Teach You About ‘LegiSLAYtion’ Austin drag queen Brigitte Bandit hosts ‘LegiSLAYtion & Liberation’ every Tuesday night to teach people about the legislative process.

Last week, Austin drag queen Brigitte Bandit wore a skirt listing the names of pastors accused of sexual assault to the Texas Capitol to testify against a ban on drag story hours. Now, she’s using what she’s learned in political activism to teach audiences the legislative process via drag.

Texas Senate passes sweeping bill targeting out-of-state abortion pill providers SB 2880 would make it a felony to pay for abortion costs and allow private citizens to sue pill distributors, prescribers and payment platforms.

NEW: The Texas Senate passed SB 2880, the widest-ranging abortion pill crackdown in the country, last night.

Sen. Bryan Hughes says it will protect women & "unborn children." Dems slammed it as a "bounty hunter bonanza" that violates separation of powers. #txlege www.statesman.com/story/news/p...

Texas Politicians Are So Excited to Tell Us Doctors Won’t Go to Jail for Saving Women’s Lives, Except for the Times They Still Might A bipartisan effort to clean up the mess of Texas’ abortion bans passed the Senate. It doesn’t make exemptions for rape or fatal fetal abnormalities.

As of this morning #SB31 was in the House.

A bipartisan effort to help clean up the mess of Texas’ abortion bans passed the Texas Senate. Of course, it doesn’t make any exemptions for rape, incest, teen pregnancies and fatal fetal abnormalities. #txlege #texas

thebarbedwire.com/2025/04/29/t...

The Beyoncé Cowboy Carter Act Two Tour is Putting Texas Where it Belongs: Everywhere Bey’s Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit, comes to Houston in June. Opening night tells us, she’s making sure the world knows what it means to be Texan.

At the Cowboy Carter tour kickoff, Beyoncé didn’t just put on a show, she made a statement.

She’s been iced out of country music, dragged for not being “country enough,” and hit with racist vitriol—but still, she’s that girl.

@iamleslierangel.bsky.social breaks down the moment here:

Elon Musk Was Mercilessly Trolled on Video Game Livestream, Then He Rage Quit If there is one dark joy these days, it’s still being able to laugh at the world’s richest man, who consistently exhibits the aura of a divorced dad showing up at the skate park. Over the weekend, zil...

Elon Musk tried livestreaming as he (badly) played “Path of Exile 2” from his private jet using Starlink, and got roasted into logging off. Trolls flooded the chat with gems like: “You ruined the country just like you ruined all your marriages.”

So You Want To Get Pregnant in Texas? How To Navigate Abortion Bans and Rising Maternal Mortality Rates Texas doctors say here’s how to navigate pregnancy, miscarriage, complications, and what to consider if you need life-saving abortion care.

As the Texas Legislature debates bills on exemptions to abortion bans, and other regulations on reproductive healthcare, we asked doctors how they’re navigating pregnancy talk with patients, and what to consider if you need life-saving abortion care.

Read our must-read guide:

“Texans, you may never want an abortion, but you may find yourself in my situation. You may need one to save yourself or to save a healthy, wanted baby,” Lauren Miller, a Texas mother said.

Congressman and Former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner Dies at 70 Turner, a Democrat, represented Texas’ 18th Congressional District after the passing of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

Congressman Sylvester Turner, who was just two months into his first term representing the 18th Congressional District of Texas, died on Tuesday, according to The Texas Tribune. He was 70 years old.

She Lost Her Job, Then Her Husband Cheated and Left. ‘Chasing Camilla’ Saved Her. When her daughter was a toddler, Melissa Rojas’ husband told her: “I'm not in love with you anymore.” Moving back to the Rio Grande Valley felt like defeat at first, but raising her daughter and recon...

This story from @iamleslierangel.bsky.social could truly be a movie: When her daughter was a toddler, Melissa Rojas’ husband impregnated another woman and left. Moving back to the Rio Grande Valley felt like defeat, but raising her daughter inspired a new dream.

thebarbedwire.com/2025/02/27/c...

Musk and Trump Are Marching Us Into a ‘New Fascism’ Historians and German philosophers warn that Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s takeover of the federal government has all the hallmarks of fascism. What now?

Texas oligarch & DOGE-in-chief Elon Musk has basically staged a coup-from-the-top. Historians and German philosophers are waving red flags, calling it textbook fascism. So… what’s next?

Beer’s Going to Cost More. Thanks, Trump. Thanks to Trump’s tariffs, beer companies are preparing to tack another $2 onto the price of beer cans.

Send this to your uncle who thinks Trump is “good for the economy.” Beer’s Going to Cost More, from @iamleslierangel.bsky.social for @thebarbedwire.bsky.social

thebarbedwire.com/2025/02/11/t...