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.
With tonight’s debate, it's the exact right time to learn more about the enforcement-prison-deportation nexus. And how Shah’s vital new book offers a vision out of this mess.
In her classic utopian science fiction novel The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I’m going to fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to unbuild walls.” Author Silky Shah has framed an entire book around that quote, and Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition couldn’t have come at a better time. As the narratives about border and immigration continue to deteriorate with the election rhetoric, especially as Joe Biden and Donald Trump face off in a debate tonight, the longtime director of the Detention Watch Network talks withThe Border Chronicle about defying this inhumane status quo.
Here, she shares her in-depth and historical knowledge about how immigration enforcement, the prison-industrial complex, and deportations function and intersect with the criminal justice system. And she offers sharp insight into the current moment, talking about the simultaneous gutting of the asylum system and the ramping up of border enforcement, and the good immigrant–versus–bad immigrant narrative that shows up so often in campaign talking points.
But don’t miss the last part, when Shah offers a new framework beyond these stale talking points, and focuses on creating a world where every person can thrive. As Le Guin writes in The Dispossessed, “You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
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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.
