The Border Chronicle Weekly Roundup: July 25

A road trip through the American West leads to a haunting lesson about a past atrocity, plus a community-led solution in Mexicali to fight climate change. And, a new militarized zone in Yuma.

By Caroline Tracey & Melissa del Bosque

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July 25, 2025

Happy July everyone! We’re back from summer break.

Thanks to everyone who joined us this morning for our live roundup discussion on our reporting this week, and on the latest news happening in the U.S.-Mexico border region.

The United States is definitely in one of those history-making eras. But not the good kind. Melissa’s first post after returning from summer break, is a reflection from a road trip to Denver where she learned about another dark chapter in American history — the Sand Creek Massacre. Caroline who grew up in Denver didn’t learn about this tragedy until she was in university. And most Americans have never heard of it. More than 160 years later, many White Americans still don’t accept that it happened. Melissa also speaks with activists from across the border about how they’re meeting this moment, and how they cultivate hope and healing to weather this new dystopian chapter in U.S. history.

In brighter news, Caroline interviewed Mexicali activist Denahi Valdez about citizen-led efforts to make one of the hottest cities in North America more bike friendly, and more resilient to climate change.

The Long-Distance Run

Beating the Heat: Border Cyclists Fight for Better Infrastructure

The sacrament at the border wall church in San Diego in February 2025. (Photo credit: Melissa del Bosque)

More News from the Border:

Military to establish national defense area in Yuma AZ Family

DOI Announces Land Transfer to the Department of the Navy for National Defense in Southeastern Arizona U.S. Dept. of the Interior

Tejano singer Bobby Pulido forms exploratory committee for South Texas congressional bid The Texas Tribune

Valley woman faced traumatic hospital stay prior to murder charge for self-induced abortion My RGV.com

Claim: Federal agents in plain clothes aimed guns, handcuffed Tucson Samaritans Arizona Daily Star

Feds plan to build nation’s biggest migrant detention center at Fort Bliss The Texas Tribune

Authors

Caroline Tracey

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

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.