Border Chronicle Weekly Roundup: May 9

Caroline Tracey on reporting in Sonora on binational bird conservation, Melissa on Trump’s new militarized border zones, and water treaties. Plus, send in your questions for border expert Tim Dunn.

Ask an Expert: Timothy Dunn

In the last month, as reported here at The Border Chronicle, we’ve seen active-duty military deployments and the creation of new militarized “national defense areas” at the southern border. The Trump administration is moving quickly, pushing the military into domestic law enforcement duties, violating federal laws, and acting without the approval of Congress. What should we be concerned about moving forward? And is this unprecedented?

Sociologist Timothy Dunn is one of the top experts on border militarization in the United States. And he will answer those questions, and any others you might have about this rapid militarization happening right now at the border. Dunn’s books include The Militarization of the U.S. Mexico Border 1978-1992: Low Intensity Doctrine Comes Home and Blockading the Border and Human Rights: The El Paso Operation that Remade Immigration Enforcement.

Email questions for Timothy Dunn to theborderchronicle@protonmail.com And he will answer them via video in our weekly roundup on May 30. Don’t forget to put “ask an expert” in the subject line of your email.

This Week in The Border Chronicle:

More News from the Border:

‘No meaningful treatment’: Doctor says San Diego County jails are the worst he’s ever seen: The San Diego Union Tribune

SpaceX workers in South Texas vote yes to create City of Starbase: The Texas Tribune

As Starbase, Texas voted into reality, opponents gather on Boca Chica Beach: MyRGV.com

Outbound inspections back up border traffic at northern border: The Northern Light

Authors

Caroline Tracey covers the environment and arts and culture for The Border Chronicle. She is the author of the book Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History, a blend of environmental reportage and memoir published in March 2026 by W.W. Norton.

Outside of The Border Chronicle, Caroline’s reporting about the US Southwest, Mexico, and the borderlands has appeared in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos. Her literary and art criticism appears in the Nation, the New Republic, and elsewhere, and has been commissioned by SFMOMA and the National Gallery of Art.

Caroline’s work has received a Fulbright fellowship, the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing, the Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights, a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant, and an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, among other honors. In 2025 she received the inaugural On the Brinck | Places Prize for writing about the Southwest and in 2026 she received a State of the Art prize from Creative Capital. She holds a doctorate in geography from the University of California, Berkeley.

Outside of work, Caroline likes to spend her time reading, swimming, and walking her dog, Sandro.

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. 

Del Bosque is also the author of Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty. She has a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master’s in Public Health from the Texas A&M School of Rural Public Health, and a Bachelor’s in poetry and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

In her spare time, Melissa loves to travel, spend time with her family, and explore the Sonoran Desert.