The Border Chronicle is Feeling the Love

It’s been an encouraging week with 79 new paid subscribers! Keep ’em coming and we thank you!

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Newsletter
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June 10, 2022

We can’t tell you how encouraging it’s been this week to receive so much positive feedback and 79 new paid subscribers! And a very special thanks to all of you who have become founding members.

A look at our subscriber database today. Look at that awesome rise in paid subscriptions!

Todd and I truly appreciate your kind words and your investment in The Border Chronicle. We are honored and thankful for your support. We’re also thankful to those with knowledge on fundraising for small media outlets who have reached out to us in the last few days. We will definitely be in touch!

And we’ve got some great coverage planned for the coming year, including expanding our podcast and more reporting from Mexican border communities.

We announced the cold hard truth on Tuesday, that our funding runs out in September. When we launched in September 2021 with funding from Substack’s Local Reporting Initiative we wrote about how in the last two decades that Todd and I have been reporting on the borderlands we’ve watched the decline of local journalism and accurate, community-based reporting.

Sadly, the void left behind is being filled by misinformation and disinformation, which is hurting border communities.

This is why we’re committed to continuing The Border Chronicle. With your help we’re now at 361 paid subscribers. We only need 1,639 more to become sustainable. We’re on our way. But we still have some serious hustling to do. (Sorry we couldn’t resist haha).

Please spread the word about subscribing to your friends and family. Just $6 a month/or $60 annually. We also offer founding memberships for $125 which include four additional subscriptions for friends and family, and our undying gratitude.

What do you get with a paid subscription, you ask? You’ll get access to our discussion threads with invited experts as well as a series we call “Reporter’s Notebook” with observations and photos from the field as we’re reporting our stories.

Speaking of discussion threads: This coming Thursday, June 16, we’re going to have a fascinating discussion where U.S. and European experts will discuss similarities and differences between European and U.S. border migration and enforcement. With global migration increasing faster than the global population, migration and climate change are the defining issues of this century. Our guests will include  Petra Molnar of the Refugee Law Lab; Lauren Markham, author of The Faraway Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life, who has also written extensively on European border enforcement; Mark Akkerman, a researcher at the Dutch organization Stop Wapenhandel (and Transnational Institute), who has examined the border industrial complex of Fortress Europe like no other; and David Alvarez, English professor at Grand Valley State, who brings a literary perspective, especially from the point of view of the Mediterranean coast of Gibraltar.

Todd will moderate the discussion which starts June 16 at 10 a.m. Pacific/11 a.m. mountain/noon central/1 p.m. eastern.

If you’re new to discussion threads. The way it works is a live link will hit your email inbox at the start time. Then you can write questions for the experts and make comments. The discussion will be live throughout the day so you can participate at your convenience. This is going to be especially amazing because we have an All-Star League of border experts from both sides of the Atlantic.

Please join us! Subscribe and get in touch! Let us know how we’re doing and what you’d like to see more of border coverage-wise.

Un abrazo desde Tucson,

Melissa & Todd

Authors
Melissa del Bosque

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

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.

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