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
Reporter’s Notebook: Water, War Zones, and the Search for Peace on the Rio Grande
Photos and observations from a trip to southern Texas: from boat patrols to crowd-sourced walls, from aerostats and SpaceX to reservoirs with little water.
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Thou Shall Not Pray for Peace: The Bombing of Iran and the U.S.-Mexico Border
A few days after the United States launched Operation Epic Fury in Iran, the Border Patrol changed its policy on visits to the border wall, denying a church group permission to pray there, “for their own safety.”
A War Zone, Minus the War: One Year Into the Military Buildup of the U.S.-Mexico Border
An investigation into how President Trump’s emergency declaration along the southern border expanded military power, blurred legal lines, and helped spread the use of military-grade technology.
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.
Big Bend Border Wall Blues: A Q&A with Journalist Sam Karas
“We love Big Bend the way it is. It does not need to change. We do not feel any danger, and we don’t want it to look like other places. And nothing makes a person who lives out here more mad than the idea of looking at a damn fence.”