From the Borderlands

Welcome new subscribers! And apologies if my first posting for you is a repeat of Austin Kocher's recent interview with me, published on May 8, the date Germany surrendered to the Allied Forces 80 years ago. It was such an animated interview that Austin and I decided it deserved to be shared out via my Substack, too. And as I'm just getting back from a research trip to Berlin, during which I trace...

Last year, from June 10 to Thanksgiving, 2024, I criss-crossed the United States, engaging with faith- and community-based organizations as well as learning groups of all ages and stages on the central topic of my book: How our “broken” US immigration system works just fine for the demagogues and profiteers of the Border Industrial Complex that benefit from it, which is why we’ve achieved no human...

Welcome new subscribers! And hello to one and all! THE HOPE KNOWS NO BORDERS BOOK CLUB & WEBINAR SERIES kicked off on March 30, 2025, with a focus on providing Sanctuary & Building Railroads. As the US Department of Homeland Security's 80k-member+ forces — ICE and Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol — continue their Reign of Terror, disappearing people with no criminal...

This time last year, with my publisher anxious to get Crossing the Line to press and into public hands during the 2024 US presidential campaign, I struggled to bring to a close what, it turns out, is a tale with no end. Only so many pages can fit between the front and back cover of a book. And there was so much more I wanted to share: - About the 140+-year history of mass expulsion from the United...

Listen, Like, Share... This was Mama Sass’s demo version before heading into the studio. The Nashville Country Rock version can be found on YouTube here with an admittedly better chorus lyric: (Begging forgiveness for all the IP credits I’m unable to cite.) Thanks for reading From the Borderlands! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Tales of Humanity at sarahtowle.subs...

83 years ago—on February 19, 1942—President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066, which became the basis for the forced displacement and incarceration of over 120,000 people of Japanese descent during WWII. They were rounded up, taken to processing centers, and interned in ten concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) in California, Arizona, Wyoming, C...

Hey everyone, Sarah here. Thanks for joining me for another episode of From the Borderlands. Today, I want to shine a light on the notion of “criminality” in US immigration enforcement because it’s a word that’s bandied about a lot without explanation. For example, Trump & Co state that ICE raids are targeted, that they are only going after “bad guys.” Border Czar, Tom Homan, says that every time...

In less than 10 days, the full fury of Trump & Co 2.0’s agenda has been revealed. Among staff purges and funding freezes, the country’s top immigration enforcers, ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in paramilitary-style actions reminiscent of Hitler’s Gestapo, have exposed that the US is now well beyond the first and second, even the third, stages outlined by Toni Morrison’s Ten Steps To...

On November 6, 2024, the day after… I had the great honor of joining colleagues from El Paso’s Hope Border Institute and members of the New Jersey Immigrant Rights team of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) at the beautiful New Brunswick Performing Arts Center , to introduce the premiere of the latest film by Robert Bilheimer and Worldwide Documentaries: Running to Stand Still - Migrant...

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: Hello. This is Sarah Towle, author of Crossing the Line . Thanks for joining me for another episode of From the Borderlands. ~ ~ ~ Five years ago this week, my journey of discovery of the many-headed hydra, that is the U.S. immigration system, began in Brownsville, Texas, with the act of bearing witness to the inhumanity of the Remain in Mexico program, otherwise known as the M...

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: Hi there. This is Sarah Towle, author of the award-winning book, Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands . It was family separation, kids in cages, and refugee camps on the threshold of the world's richest nation that incited me to go to the U.S. southern border to see for myself the inhumanity I then believed had been wrought by Trump 1.0. Once there, however, it...

It starts with a dream that becomes a dot. A red dot, representing a GPS coordinate on a map transformed into a hole, not too deep, cut into the earth with a pickaxe and shovel, then filled with moistened gravel and quick-dry cement into which Tucson, Arizona-based artist, Alvaro Enciso, plants a simple cross of rough 2x3inch pine strips painted a vibrant color and secured at the midpoint with a r...

We begin the second season of Witness Radio with a mind-blowing treat. Witness Radio Executive Producer Camilo Perez-Bustillo and I join Nandita Sharma and Reece Jones to explore the question:  From the war in Ukraine to the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond: Who gets welcome? Who gets to move? We conclude with ideas about how to create a more inclusive world, one better able to confront such challeng...

How hard is it to welcome immigrants with dignity in the US? To bring order, fairness, and humanity to an immigration system built on foundations of white supremacy and racial exclusion? Very hard. Especially when immigration is a voting issue for only one party.  The use of Title 42 is the perfect example. An obscure public health order, it was brought out of obscurity two years ago this month by...

The past two years have brought the world changes never imagined: a global pandemic; the lockdowns and the losses; the border closures and the politics of avoiding illness, even death. But throughout it all, there is one thing that hasn’t skipped a beat: the US Deportation Machine.  This episode's featured guest is Thomas Cartwright, a member of the leadership team of Witness at the Border. Tom de...

Witness Radio's Sarah Towle and Camilo Perez-Bustillo kick off a second season with reflection on the Biden administration's one-year record on border and immigration, framed through the civil rights legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They start with the question, What would Dr. King have said about one of the greatest human rights crimes in recent US history: family separation? A civil rights...

The Grand Finale of Witness Radio's Inaugural Season A cruel, anti-asylum Trump-era policy is back under a president who promised a more humane border: the Migrant "Protection" Protocols, which never protected anyone at all. Biden maintains that his Remain in Mexico program, or MPP 2.0, will be a gentler, “lite” version of his predecessor’s policy. But can Inhumane be less Inhumane? That is the qu...

In December 2018, Heads of State and Government met in Marrakech, Morocco under the auspices of the United Nations to adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration , placing migration and refugee matters squarely on the international agenda.  Camilo Perez-Bustillo, the Executive Producer of Witness Radio, was there. In remembrance of both International Human Rights Day (Dec 10)...

In a month that history will remember for the US welcoming Afghan refugees fleeing political chaos, violence, and persecution while expelling Haitians fleeing all these things and more, we perhaps lost sight of the nearly 13,000 children still being held captive by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Hidden from view by US government contractors in retro-fitted big box stores and "shel...

Violence and repression have been a national plague in Colombia for more than half a century. The latest turn in the vicious cycle came this summer when a post-pandemic tax hike aimed at the middle class and poor drove Colombians of all stripes into the streets. A peaceful demonstration, resembling a street party, erupted nationwide. The southwest city of Cali, population 2.2 million -- 60% of who...

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, Margaret Seiler of Witness at the Border sits down with Amali Tower, Founder and Executive Director of Climate Refugees , a research and advocacy organization that calls for the protection of those displaced by climate change. The latest driver of forced migration, climate change has had devastating effects throughout the Glob...

Everyone’s talking about “root causes of migration” these days. We’re hearing a lot about poverty, corruption, violence. But we’re not hearing much about what’s behind that poverty, corruption, violence, or the climate-related disasters and failing economies that force people to pull up stakes and flee. Why? We’re also hearing a lot about bringing “Security and Prosperity” to the Central American...

No Place for Kids. Let Our Children Go!  It was April 30th, 2021, Mexico’s Children’s Day —  El Dia de las Niñas y Niños, which happened to coincide with the 100th day of the Biden administration. Witness at the Border, together with over 80 national and international sponsors, and in collaboration with local partners — the Border Network for Human Rights, the Coalition to End Child Detention,...

With Guerline Josef of Haitian Bridge Alliance If you've never heard of Title 42, I'm not surprised. It's a super obscure part of the United States public health code. In this inaugural episode of Witness Radio, we unpack the evils lurking behind Title and explain why everyone should demand President Biden and DHS Secretary Mayorkas to rescind it...Now! On the night I joined Guerline Jozef, Thomas...

Meet the mighty band from Witness at the Border. Find out what it means to Witness and to be a Witness. Learn how witnessing is different (and not so different) from activism, and how YOU can become a Witness at the Border today! In order of appearance: Joshua Rubin Camilo Perez-Bustillo Julie Swift Karla Barber Lee Goodman Thomas Cartwright Margaret Seiler and Witness Radio host & creator, Sa...