Do you have questions about the recent buoy debacle on the Rio Grande? Our reporting has you covered, plus an important new hire at The Border Chronicle, and our new project Wall Watch.
As floodwaters swept hundreds of one-ton border buoys downstream, international bridges closed, commerce slowed, and officials struggled to get answers from DHS about a project advancing despite local opposition, environmental concerns, and treaty questions.
Hundreds of massive orange buoys staged for a controversial DHS floating barrier project broke free near Eagle Pass and are now drifting toward Laredo, threatening bridges, commerce, drinking water supplies and downstream communities.
The longtime border journalist talks about his new book on open borders and the quest for a more just and open world.
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?”
In February, the country broke an ominous record: over 68,000 people were being held in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more than ever before.
As immigrant families face detention, shrinking legal protections and the threat of deportation, Camp Hope offers children a rare chance to play, heal and dream. One former camper is headed to an opera conservatory in Italy.
Border Chronicle founders, Todd and Melissa, talk about how law enforcement surveillance, high-speed chases instigated by Border Patrol, unwarranted searches and seizures, and other heavy-handed policing that border communities have endured for decades has now moved into the interior of the country.
With interior Border Patrol checkpoints to the north, and the border to the south, DACA recipients in border communities feel under threat by multiple layers of law enforcement, from ICE to local police. Nowhere more so than in Texas.
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
