Come get a glimpse of the inner workings of the border industrial complex with these photos, text, and a video tour of the exhibition hall at the end. You will also learn about the national border security awards and who won person of the year.
"The history of migration through El Paso is one that’s been forgotten and overlooked, even though these workers—and not just workers but intellectuals, activists, and poets—helped shape the American Southwest as we know it today."
Happy May Day! An audio deep dive into the National Defense Areas and a human rights archeologist speaks on the politics of haunting and border deaths.
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.
For six years, Jenn Budd wore the green uniform of the U.S. Border Patrol. Before joining in 1995 Budd, who grew up in Alabama, says she knew little about the agency. Her harrowing experiences of misogyny, rape, sexual harassment, and with corruption at the agency would ultimately force her to resign.
But Budd says, leaving the Border Patrol was only the beginning on a long road of reckoning. Not only with her years as an agent but also with a childhood of trauma and abuse.
Her new memoir: Against the Wall: My Journey from Border Patrol Agent to Immigrant Rights Activist, takes an unflinching look at a Border Patrol riddled with corruption, racism, and misogyny. Raw and truthful, no one escapes judgement, not even Budd, who searches deep within herself to examine her own prejudices as a White southerner, and the role she played as a Border Patrol agent.
Budd’s book, which comes out in June, is also about healing from deeply inflicted traumas. After grappling with suicide, she eventually finds love and acceptance with her wife Sandy and becomes an activist for immigrant rights.
In this Border Chronicle podcast, Budd talks about her journey from Border Patrol agent to one of the Border Patrol’s fiercest critics.
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"The history of migration through El Paso is one that’s been forgotten and overlooked, even though these workers—and not just workers but intellectuals, activists, and poets—helped shape the American Southwest as we know it today."
With more than 40 percent of the U.S.-Mexico border now under military authority, we discuss our Border Chronicle/The War Horse investigation examining this unprecedented expansion of federal power and its impact on border communities.
“For a long time, a big proportion of the American public said that border security was their most important issue. People are starting to realize what that means in terms of the violence entailed.”
As federal officials fast-track billions in border wall construction and floating buoy barriers, local leaders and residents say they’re in the dark, and fear the worst.
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
