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SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — On a recent hot, humid day, James Galloway tooled around the captain's quarters of his shrimping boat.

Docked in the Port of Brownsville, the vessel should have been out in the bay catching shrimp with nets that spread like butterfly wings over the water. But like so many of his colleagues, Galloway couldn't find enough workers to even leave the dock, much less fish. He said no one wants to work in shrimping anymore because the money just isn't there.

Brownsville used to be known as the shrimping capital of the world . At the height of the local industry some 450 shrimping boats would go out into the bay to catch highly coveted Texas brown shr

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