Save the Date 12.7.23: Join us Thursday for a Border Chronicle discussion thread with invited experts

From Palestine to global migration to the U.S.-Mexico border. You have questions, our invited experts will have answers. Join us!

Please join us on December 7, at 1 p.m. mountain time (3 p.m. EST), for a discussion thread pondering the questions: What is border externalization? What does it mean for policy, strategy, and people on the move in large numbers around the world? And what does it mean for a border industry that continues to grow and grow?

We have an amazing panel of international experts who will help us engage these questions as we think about not only U.S. and European border extension into distant places around the globe, but also the global border industry, with a particular focus on Israel. We will also contemplate the effects of the changing climate in all this. Ana María Vásquez—an artist and activist who spends every summer on the Panamanian-Colombian border—will give a firsthand account of what she has witnessed on that border. Ana María is also one of the founders of the Border Patrol Victims Network. Journalist and author Antony Loewenstein, who is the author of the recent and very timely The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation around the World, will talk about Israel’s participation in the global border industry. The Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute’s Project Officer for their War and Pacification program Josephine Valeske will discuss border externalization from a European perspective. We also are crossing our fingers that Border Chronicle favorite Amali Tower, director and founder of the organization Climate Refugees, will join us directly from the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Dubai, to offer analysis about how climate change is a part of the mass displacement we are seeing at all corners of the world and how border externalization impacts that.

Border Chronicle co-founder Todd Miller will moderate the conversation and add perspective on U.S. border externalization, which he researched in depth for his book Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border around the World.

Normally, we offer these discussion threads for our paid subscribers as a special thanks for supporting our reporting and analysis. The Border Chronicle requires a lot of times and resources. And we need your support to continue!

But this Thursday we’re going to open up the discussion for our free subscribers as well, so that you can get an idea of our full offerings for paid subscribers. We’re also considering expanding into online Q&A’s with invited experts, which we’re going to explore in 2024.

If you’re unfamiliar with discussion threads, they are a rolling text-based conversation with ample space for readers to ask questions and make comments and observations. When the discussion launches, participants will receive an email in their inbox from us at 12:00 pm PT/ 1:00 MT/2:00 CT/ 3:00 ET, and you can begin submitting your questions and comments for the invited experts. We hope to see you Thursday!

Authors

Melissa del Bosque is Co-founder and Executive Director of The Border Chronicle. Melissa has written about the U.S.-Mexico border since 1998 for various media outlets, including ProPublica, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Texas Observer, and The Intercept.

Her work has been recognized with numerous U.S. and international journalism awards, including a Gabo Award and the Internacional Rey de España de Periodismo award, as the U.S.-Mexico investigations editor for Lighthouse Reports. In 2020, del Bosque received the RFK Human Rights Journalism Award as part of a ProPublica group reporting project “Inside the Border Patrol.” In 2016, she received the Hillman Prize for her investigative feature “Death on Sevenmile Road” about the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2015, del Bosque’s four-part series with The Guardian on migrant deaths in South Texas won an Emmy and a National Magazine Award. 

Del Bosque is also the author of Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty. She has a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master’s in Public Health from the Texas A&M School of Rural Public Health, and a Bachelor’s in poetry and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

In her spare time, Melissa loves to travel, spend time with her family, and explore the Sonoran Desert.

Todd Miller is Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of The Border Chronicle. He is the author of four books that examine border militarization and its externalization, surveillance technology and industry, climate change, and the search for alternatives. His books include Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (City Lights, 2021) Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019),  Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2017), and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014).

Todd’s forthcoming book is a deep examination of water as a border issue in an age of climate-induced heat waves and drought. It will be published by Seven Stories Press in 2027.

Besides The Border Chronicle, articles by Todd have appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, TomDispatch, and Al Jazeera English, among other places. He has also authored and co-authored reports on border surveillance, the border industrial complex, and climate change for the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute, where he is a fellow.

Todd’s book Storming the Wall received the Izzy Award in 2018 for “path-breaking and in-depth reporting.” He also received first place in “Community immigration reporting” by the Arizona Press Club in 2013. Todd has a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Journalism from Prescott College, where he is also an adjunct professor.

In his spare time, Todd likes to travel, read, philosophize, and hang out with his two kids—whether it be going to a dance recital or being a basketball coach.

Join us for our 5 Year Anniversary Party October 22nd  →

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