The Border Chronicle

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. They also discuss Todd’s upcoming book on climate change and the Rio Grande, and recent Border Chr...

This conversation, hosted by Todd Miller, about a great borderlands adobe brick building project is going great, until Jacques Servin —of the political performance artist trickster and activist troupe called the Yes Men —fails to grasp the meaning of the term "border security" — at least how it’s conveyed to the world by the high brass of the Department of Homeland Security. Though frustrating at...

  Gabriela Rangel, director of Tucson’s Museum of Contemporary Art , was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. As a curator focusing on Latin American art, she’s worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Americas Society in New York City, and the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. In the fall of 2025 she became the director of Tucson's Museum of Contemporary Art.    In this po...

José Olivares is an independent investigative journalist and audio producer who reports on immigration enforcement, U.S. operations in Latin America, and human rights. He is also the podcast editor for The Border Chronicle, and we’re lucky to have him on our team. In this episode, we discuss his recent investigation , “A Mexican Surveillance Giant You’ve Never Heard of Is Now Watching the U.S. Bor...

In January 2025, the Trump administration declared a national emergency at the southern border and directed the military to take control of large expanses of the border, which include major cities like El Paso, McAllen, and Brownsville, and designate them as “National Defense Areas”. In a recent Border Chronicle investigation “A War Zone: Minus the War” with the nonprofit The War Horse , which ser...

When Alex González Ormerod, editor of the Mexico Political Economist , started researching his book about the Mexican right wing, he found an odd pattern: many of his interviewees didn’t identify as part of the Right. They called themselves liberals. But “liberal” was also the term used by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, then the country’s left-wing president, to describe himself. For González Ormero...

Resistance can take many forms . One of them, as Amy Juan of the Tohono O’odham explains here, is for people to come together to run in unity, prayer, and witness across traditional O’odham land, crisscrossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The annual Unity Run has taken place since 1995 with the purpose of “reinstating the tradition of running and carrying prayers,” which “unites us in respectful observ...

For Lydia Otero , researching the history of the Southwest is personal and political. Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, their family frequented a place they called La Calle that was bustling with shops and pedestrians. The family did not own a car, so they walked there. Soon, the construction of I-10 through the city divided them from La Calle. Then, while Otero was living in Los Angeles working as a...

Tombstone, Arizona calls itself “The Town too Tough to Die.” It has an Old West-themed Main Street and daily re-enactments of gunfights. For most people, it’s a place to briefly drop into in order to experience a Disneyland-style version of Arizona history. For Logan Phillips , however, Tombstone was once home. The Tucson, Arizona-based poet was born in the town and grew up nearby. His father work...

In the spirit of broadening the analysis beyond ICE, Border Chronicle cofounders Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller discuss the leading role the U.S. Border Patrol has played in violent operations across the country. We analyze how these shocking immigration sweeps—such as the one in Minneapolis that killed Renée Good and Alex Pretti—extend the U.S. border into the interior. To understand these op...

This has been a difficult week, as many mourn the deaths of Renee Good and others at the hands of ICE. As enforcement actions escalate across the country, the whole country becomes part of the borderlands, and thoughtful, detailed reporting from the region continues to become ever more important. This week, we were happy to bring you a review by Caroline Tracey of an art exhibition by Sonora-born...

I’ve been speaking with Jenn Budd for years about Border Patrol crimes, impunity and how the agency could be (and should be reformed.) But both Democrats and Republicans have refused to demand oversight and accountability for the highly politicized agency. Border Patrol and its paramilitary culture are now very much in control of the ICE & Border Patrol occupations in various cities in America...

This Week in The Border Chronicle : More News from the Border: River wall: Feds deploying 500-miles of water barriers near Brownsville MyRGV.com San Diego sues federal government over concertina wire fence at border KPBS Trump’s deportation drive is straining the US public coffers and labor market El Pais The Rio Grande Valley among Texas regions most impacted by expiring health insurance subsidie...

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This Week in The Border Chronicle: More News from the Border: The Trump administration announced this week that it will further militarize the California-Mexico border by creating another national defense area, which will be under the control of the U.S. Navy. Interior Transfers Public Land to Navy to Support Border Security and National Defense U.S. Dept. of the Interior press release. Ft. Bliss...

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...

This Week in The Border Chronicle: More News from the Border: 3 people arrested after Border Patrol raids No More Deaths camp in Az The Tucson Sentinel For additional context listen to our podcast with Scott Warren, a No More Deaths volunteer who faced 20 years in jail under the first Trump administration for providing humanitarian aid. New Video: Border Wall Blasts Destroy Southern Arizona Jaguar...

The legal director of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project provides an on-the-ground analysis of and reckoning with year 1 of the Trump administration’s detention and deportation regime. What happens after an arrest? How many people have been detained? And what happens to asylum seekers? And what exactly is Kafka’s merry-go-round of hell? Laura St. John answers these questions and mor...

This Week in The Border Chronicle: More News from the Border: A Theology of Smuggling Places Journal In the early 1980s, in Tucson, activists and religious leaders joined forces to protect refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border. Their collaboration galvanized the Sanctuary Movement. A drying-up Rio Grande basin threatens water security on both sides of the border Associated Press RGISC warns border wa...

Jonathan Blitzer is a staff writer at The New Yorker who covers immigration, politics, and foreign affairs for the magazine. His recent piece for the magazine , “The Real Target of Trump’s War on Drug Boats,” highlights Stephen Miller, homeland security adviser to President Trump, as a driving force, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, behind the illegal and deadly strikes on boats in the C...

As we’ve mentioned recently, we’re going to be improving The Border Chronicle and expanding. We’ll have more details in the coming weeks. This week we brought on Brenda Machado, our very first digital strategist and audience engagement hire, which is huge for us. We now have a greater presence on social media platforms, and we’re already seeing the difference. When Brenda is not working her magic...

We want to thank everyone who has filled out our survey. And for those who haven’t yet, never fear, we are continuing to seek your input! Please click below. This Week at The Border Chronicle: More News from the Border: ICE officials replaced with Border Patrol, cementing hard tactics that originated in California Los Angeles Times Santa Barbara’s Día de los Muertos Parade Canceled Amid Immigratio...

Longtime organizer and former Pima County Legal Defender Isabel Garcia starts the conversation off with an assessment of U.S. public knowledge of important historic issues such as the genocide of Indigenous people, slavery, labor, and immigration. “What do people,” she asks, “know about immigration in this country?” This is the question that guides our conversation that spans decades, even centuri...

More News from the Border: We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. ProPublica Opinion: Drone attack in Tijuana a glimpse of a new kind of narco war San Diego Union-Tribune La embajadora de Palestina inicia gira nacional en Tijuana denunciando genocidio en Gaza Tijuana Press Coast Guard launches Operation Ri...

Every Friday, The Border Chronicle hosts a discussion on Substack Live to keep you informed on our latest articles and podcasts, and other important news from across the U.S.-Mexico border region. This Week in The Border Chronicle: Thank you to everyone who attended The Border Chronicle’s Fourth anniversary party Thursday night. We had a blast! And thank you to all of our readers and listeners who...