The Border Chronicle Weekly Roundup: December 5

A photographer documents extreme drought in Chihuahua and a Tucson poet talks apocalypse, and finding inspiration from Interstate 10 for her new book. Plus, more news from across the border region.

This Week in The Border Chronicle:

More News from the Border:

3 people arrested after Border Patrol raids No More Deaths camp in Az The Tucson Sentinel

For additional context listen to our podcast with Scott Warren, a No More Deaths volunteer who faced 20 years in jail under the first Trump administration for providing humanitarian aid.

New Video: Border Wall Blasts Destroy Southern Arizona Jaguar Habitat The Center for Biological Diversity

Builders leader: Valley banks are also being impacted by ICE raids of construction sites Rio Grande Guardian

Senador de Ohio que nació en Colombia y gozó de la doble nacionalidad quiere prohibírsela a todos los demás Conecta Arizona

Liberan campesinos Aduana y puentes tras acuerdos; si nos incumplen volverán bloqueos, advierten La Verdad de Juarez

Border Report: The Unseen Cost of Detaining as Many Immigrants as Possible Voice of San Diego

A Tucsonan is Claiming Asylum in Canada. Her Case Could Reshape How LGBTQ+ People Seek Safety Abroad. Lookout

Gutting of key US watchdog could pave way for grave immigration abuses, experts warn The Guardian

Revealed: US veterans affairs to share immigration data about non-citizen workers with ‘appropriate agencies’ The Guardian

Authors

Caroline Tracey covers the environment and arts and culture for The Border Chronicle. She is the author of the book Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History, a blend of environmental reportage and memoir published in March 2026 by W.W. Norton.

Outside of The Border Chronicle, Caroline’s reporting about the US Southwest, Mexico, and the borderlands has appeared in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos. Her literary and art criticism appears in the Nation, the New Republic, and elsewhere, and has been commissioned by SFMOMA and the National Gallery of Art.

Caroline’s work has received a Fulbright fellowship, the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing, the Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights, a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant, and an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, among other honors. In 2025 she received the inaugural On the Brinck | Places Prize for writing about the Southwest and in 2026 she received a State of the Art prize from Creative Capital. She holds a doctorate in geography from the University of California, Berkeley.

Outside of work, Caroline likes to spend her time reading, swimming, and walking her dog, Sandro.

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.