In this week's podcast, Melissa del Bosque and Geographer Dugan Meyer explain how the Border Chronicle's new project, Wall Watch, helps residents document and understand the massive construction project underway at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Countering negative narratives with an event that honors interconnectedness and subverts the border in Agua Prieta/Douglas, and a contested hotel--in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley--that is of great importance for Mexican American civil rights.
There is a reckoning with history happening at an old hotel with a horrific past and the RGV's first and only civil rights museum.
Melissa and Todd on the last time Trump deployed active military to the border; the immigration policy of cansancio in Mexico; and Harris and the Dems’ tough talk on asylum.
It’s democracy vs. fascism in the most consequential election of our lifetime. We talk about its implications for border communities. Also, Todd talks about his latest reporting from Mexico, where migrants are continually being sent back to the country’s southern border, creating a cycle of futility and suffering. Melissa recalls reporting on Trump’s Operation Faithful Patriot, in which Trump set up military camps at the U.S. southern border before the 2018 midterm election. He also used special Border Patrol teams to kidnap protesters in Portland, Oregon. If he’s elected, it will be much worse this time.
We also discuss Kamala Harris’s tough stance on border security and the bipartisan bill rejected by Trump, and the broader implications of this for human rights and migration. And we get into misconceptions about “open borders,” and we talk about the role of “robodogs” and other technology in border enforcement. And much more.
Also during the podcast, neither Todd nor Melissa could remember the name of a great book on immigration policy under the Trump administration (it’s been that kind of a month): it’s Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration, by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael Shear. It’s chock-full of details about what went down inside the administration during that chaotic era. And here’s a post featuring the infamous robodogs from March, when Todd crashed the annual Border Security expo in El Paso, Texas, even though the expo banned journalists.
And one last thing—don’t forget to vote. Our democracy depends on it!
In this week's podcast, Melissa del Bosque and Geographer Dugan Meyer explain how the Border Chronicle's new project, Wall Watch, helps residents document and understand the massive construction project underway at the U.S.-Mexico border.
A vivid depiction of what has been happening during the last eight weeks of resistance against border wall construction in southern Arizona’s San Rafael Valley.
Wall Watch combines geospatial mapping, archival research, and community participation to provide the public with an accurate, continually updated record of border wall construction along nearly 2,000 miles of the international border.
Worried about the future of democracy in the United States? Look to Indigenous histories; they have much to teach us about the struggle between liberty and empire.
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
