Do you have questions about the recent buoy debacle on the Rio Grande? Our reporting has you covered, plus an important new hire at The Border Chronicle, and our new project Wall Watch.
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.
What happens when you are in love but a massive border apparatus is in your way? Listen here to find out.
The holiday season abounds with stories of couples and loved ones going great distances to be together, often with great feelings of love and romance. But what happens when there is a global border apparatus in the way?
Well, today we have the perfect person to talk to about that: author, writer, and journalist Anna Lekas Miller. In this podcast, she explains how people attempt to manage this daunting circumstance, sometimes against all odds. She starts the conversation talking about her own romance and how that inspired her new book, Love Across Borders: Passports, Papers, and Romance in a Divided World. She tells us about how she fell in love with Syrian journalist Salem Rizk, now her husband, in Istanbul. Just as their romance was getting started, the Turkish government began a crackdown on both Syrians and journalists, of which Salem was both. Authorities kicked him out of the country. As Anna puts it, they went from “fun and flirty” to “how are we going to be together?”
This forced Anna to think about other people across the world who are in a similar situation: in love but divided by borderlines. Here, she gives us a taste of the stories she details in the book, and while doing that she talks about passports, statelessness, Gaza, and the strange plot twist with her own attempts to get papers with Salem.
At the end, Anna offers a solution. One that, rest assured, would be a wonderful holiday gift for so many people:
“If we had this political imagination to decriminalize borders the way that something like marijuana has been decriminalized in many places in the United States, I think that could change a lot of people’s lives for the better.”
Help The Border Chronicle meet its goal of 10 more paid subscribers in December. It will go directly to reporting from the borderlands.
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.
As immigrant families face detention, shrinking legal protections and the threat of deportation, Camp Hope offers children a rare chance to play, heal and dream. One former camper is headed to an opera conservatory in Italy.
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
