As federal officials fast-track billions in border wall construction and floating buoy barriers, local leaders and residents say they’re in the dark, and fear the worst.
Were you wondering what was going on with Mexico's right wing? And what Argentina's disappeared have to do with the U.S.-Mexico border? You've come to the right place.
A defining issue of this century will be people on the move and where they settle. Wealthier countries like the U.S. are responding by walling themselves off from the rest of the world and investing in deterrence and detention, which only contributes to more deaths and misery while providing no long-term solutions.
There must be a better way. This was John Washington’s thought as he launched his latest book project, The Case for Open Borders, which takes a deep dive into more humane responses to global migration and examines the history of borders and nation-states, which are relatively recent in human history. Washington, based in Tucson, Arizona, is a longtime border journalist and staffer at the nonprofit journalism outlet AZ Luminaria. He is also the author of The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the U.S.-Mexico Border and Beyond.
When it comes to border and migration policies, Washington notes, “People are hungry for ideas on what we could push for—other than a defensive posture. … But what do we want? How do we have a more just and open world?”
Each year since 1995, the Tohono O’odham Nation has held the Unity Run. “These runs,” Amy Juan says,“not only have their purpose as prayer for the people and the land but also put us on the ground to actually see what is happening” on the border.