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.
Morale is low among judges, says Johnson, as the Trump administration ignores due process and the immigration case backlog grows.
Jeremiah Johnson was an immigration judge in San Francisco. On November 21, he was fired by email without explanation. “I didn’t even have time to print out the letter before the system was shut down and I was locked out,” he said. The email arrived with the subject line “Termination.” Johnson is now one of more than 100 immigration judges who have been fired nationwide since Trump took office.
A former asylum officer for the Department of Homeland Security, Johnson was appointed as an immigration judge in 2017 under the first Trump administration. He is also the vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. Until his firing, Johnson had a full docket and handled cases from the Eloy Detention Center, located midway between Phoenix and Tucson and run by the private prison company CoreCivic.
Johnson discusses the differences in working as an immigration judge under the two Trump administrations and the fate of the immigration case backlog, which currently stands at 3.4 million cases as more judges are fired. Recently, the administration started advertising for “deportation judges” and has deployed military judges to hear immigration cases, which constitutional experts say could violate posse comitatus. Johnson also discusses how the system could be fixed, noting that remaining immigration judges are wondering who will be next to be fired. “It is disheartening to see your colleagues being fired. People are worried that they will be next,” Johnson said. “If no cause is given, there’s no way to address the reasons to fire someone. So morale is extremely low.”
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.
