The Border Chronicle Weekly Roundup: April 3
A critical DNA database to identify missing migrants vanishes, the US military is closing off the border to Americans, and lots of border wall news.
Newsletter
How Artists Rethink the Border's Water Crisis
Taking back the Rio Grande/Río Bravo as a river, not a border checkpoint.
6 min read
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Inside Trump’s Plan to Finish Walling Off the Rio Grande Valley
Even sites once protected by Congress, including a butterfly refuge and a historic church, are slated for fencing funded by the “one big beautiful bill”—while the river itself is transformed by a floating barrier.
Trump Announces “First New U.S. Refinery in 50 Years” at Port of Brownsville, Reviving Local Resistance
Environmental advocates and residents say the long-proposed refinery threatens air quality and public health in a region already ringed by heavy industry.
The Borderlands’ Lost Third Country
Mexican writer Álvaro Enrigue’s new novel, Now I Surrender, is an epic about the U.S. and Mexico’s joint erasure of Apachería.
At the End of the Wall: A Reporter’s Notebook
Walking from a blasted mountain top--a planned site for new border wall construction--to a makeshift military camp along the border in a remote part of southern Arizona led to a tense yet revelatory moment.