The Trump Administration is destroying sacred sites for more border wall, a podcast on a new investigation into the massive surveillance tower opening in Ciudad Juárez, plus more events and news from the borderlands.
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.
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A special podcast with Lighthouse Reports about a year-long collaboration with The Washington Post and El Universal in Mexico published this week.
On Sunday, The Washington Post, El Universal in Mexico, and Lighthouse Reports published “Death and Deterrence in the Rio Grande,” a yearlong investigation on drowning deaths of asylum seekers. As the U.S.-Mexico investigations editor for Lighthouse Reports, I helped collect the data, did reporting, and coordinated the binational investigation.
We wanted to examine how border militarization, including Texas’ Operation Lone Star, contributes to the growing number of drowning deaths in the Rio Grande/Río Bravo.
As a longtime border reporter, I had never encountered a comprehensive, binational investigation of this issue, so a year ago, we set out to document what was happening, especially in the Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras corridor on the Rio Grande, which has seen the highest number of drownings.
The investigation began November 15, 2023, when I and my colleagues Daniel Howden, director at Lighthouse Reports, and Justin Hamel, an independent photojournalist, set out from the boat ramp at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass. Leading us down the river was Jessie Fuentes, owner of Epi’s Canoes and Kayaks. We set out at sunrise as fog drifted across the river, lending it a ghostly, ethereal ambience. But we were soon met with a cold, hard reality: desperate families stranded on islands in the middle of the river. We came across a family of four, the father with a toddler on his shoulders, standing in the freezing water. Soldiers in Texas yelled at them to go back to Mexico. During our investigation, we found that in 2023, one out of every 10 people who died in the river was a child. Our trip down the river was a heartrending experience, one I’ll never forget.
In this special Backlight & Border Chronicle podcast, I discuss our investigation’s findings with my Lighthouse colleagues Beatriz Ramahlo da Silva and Tessa Pang. And please check out the full investigation published by our media partners The Washington Post and El Universal. You can also read about how we undertook the lengthy data collection and analysis for this project at Lighthouse Reports.
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.
Like environmental regulations, cultural-and historic-preservation laws are being systematically waived for wall construction—and border communities are paying the price.
Todd witnesses a border security spending frenzy at the annual Border Security Expo in Phoenix, a Q&A with the author of a new book on El Paso's importance to U.S. history and immigration, and much more!
Come get a glimpse of the inner workings of the border industrial complex with these photos, text, and a video tour of the exhibition hall at the end. You will also learn about the national border security awards and who won person of the year.
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
