Melissa del Bosque is Co-founder and Executive Director of The Border Chronicle. Melissa has written about the U.S.-Mexico border since 1998 for various media outlets, including ProPublica, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Texas Observer, and The Intercept.
Her work has been recognized with numerous U.S. and international journalism awards, including a Gabo Award and the Internacional Rey de España de Periodismo award, as the U.S.-Mexico investigations editor for Lighthouse Reports. In 2020, del Bosque received the RFK Human Rights Journalism Award as part of a ProPublica group reporting project “Inside the Border Patrol.” In 2016, she received the Hillman Prize for her investigative feature “Death on Sevenmile Road” about the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2015, del Bosque’s four-part series with The Guardian on migrant deaths in South Texas won an Emmy and a National Magazine Award.
Border policy is fragmented. Asylum, despite being the law of the land, is all but a dream for most. Every border town up and down the line tells a different story. But as the August summer sun sears the desert, the desperation is palpable as people wait, hope and pray.
Budd's new book "Against the Wall" takes an unflinching look at the systemic misogyny and racism in the Border Patrol, and overcoming a childhood of trauma and abuse.