Bulldozing has started in the iconic Big Bend National Park, and protestors try to save the last of 200-year old cottonwood trees in Arizona as the border wall advances, plus we launch our community mapping project, Wall Watch, on Tuesday!
Worried about the future of democracy in the United States? Look to Indigenous histories; they have much to teach us about the struggle between liberty and empire.
Laredo's Epic Battle Against Federal and State-Funded Border Walls: A Conversation with Tricia Cortez
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In 2019, former President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the border, making border wall construction a top priority. Some of that wall was slated for the city of Laredo, Texas. Tricia Cortez, Executive Director of the nonprofit Rio Grande International Study Center, based in Laredo, talks about her community’s “David vs. Goliath” battle against the Trump administration’s 30-foot wall. Now her community faces a new onslaught of proposed border wall construction by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
As floodwaters swept hundreds of one-ton border buoys downstream, international bridges closed, commerce slowed, and officials struggled to get answers from DHS about a project advancing despite local opposition, environmental concerns, and treaty questions.
Hundreds of massive orange buoys staged for a controversial DHS floating barrier project broke free near Eagle Pass and are now drifting toward Laredo, threatening bridges, commerce, drinking water supplies and downstream communities.
In February, the country broke an ominous record: over 68,000 people were being held in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more than ever before.