The Mystical and Militarized Desert
On the Spanish thriller Sirāt, the concept of Saharanism, and our reckoning with narratives about the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
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.
Environmental advocates and residents say the long-proposed refinery threatens air quality and public health in a region already ringed by heavy industry.
Walking from a blasted mountain top--a planned site for new border wall construction--to a makeshift military camp along the border in a remote part of southern Arizona led to a tense yet revelatory moment.
Cristina Rivera Garza's new book, Autobiography of Cotton, traces family history through the borderlands' cotton industry.
DHS has begun installing its massive floating buoy barrier which could include more than 500 miles.
Border Walls and Buoy Barriers Are Killing the Rio Grande. I Have a Front Row Seat.
Rollbacks to the Clean Water Act may have affected the borderlands more than any other region. States are stepping up—but there’s still more to do.
Take a photographic stroll in 2025--from Inauguration Day in January to unauthorized cows crossing the Rio Grande in the fall--as we seek a “different way forward.”
One of North America’s Last Pristine Prairies in the San Rafael Valley Will Be Scarred Forever as the Border Wall Advances in Southern Arizona.
A ferocious drought has struck Chihuahua, leaving its most important river, the Río Conchos, almost dry, and its people in dire straits.
A new exhibition in Tucson commemorates community resistance to the borderlands’ military-industrial complex.
“That, to me, is what climate adaptation should look like: It’s small cooperatives, youth projects, local entrepreneurship: investments that don’t just protect against storms but nurture belonging."
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.