An expanding definition of "terror" ignites a more bellicose extension of the U.S. border abroad. A history of labor and mining and community written on borderlands' gravestones. And The Border Chronicle in Douglas and with Amy Goodman this coming week.
Just what did U.S. officials at the Border Security Expo earlier this month say about U.S. foreign policy, border extension, and a revival of the war on terror?
Mining operations have been in the center of borderland labor conflicts for more than a century. These photos tell the moving story of one such town, through its cemetery.
We can't be a leader in the world if we shut down asylum, he says.
Muzzafar Chishti, a lawyer, is a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and director of MPI’s office at New York University School of Law. He specializes in immigration policy and has spent years researching and writing about the United States’ outdated asylum system, which he says is “built on a 1952 architecture.”
Chishti discusses how the system could be meaningfully changed, including how Congress could make it both more humane and responsive to the country’s needs.
The United States, he says, is facing two fundamental crises when it comes to migration. The first is that the workforce is aging, which means we need to bring in younger workers, which will have the added benefit of keeping social security alive. The second crisis is that, globally, many people see the asylum system as the only way to enter the United States. “It’s become this default mechanism,” he says. “Not only for people to enter the United States but also for our labor market.”
“Asylum is the defining nature of our country. People came here seeking refuge,” he says. “We are in danger of losing it if we don’t correct it.”
Torre Centinela, a Mexican surveillance hub that will share intelligence with U.S. and Texas law enforcement is slated to open soon. Olivares discusses his investigation on Torre Centinela and the private corporation running it.
"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.”
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
