Border Wall Construction Set to Begin Near Historic Cemeteries in South Texas
The Trump administration broke ground next to a church and gravesites that are part of an important chapter in the history of the Underground Railroad.
Construction of US-Mexico border wall proceeds despite coronavirus pandemic
The Trump administration announced plans to erect 150 miles of barrier on the southern border, involving large numbers of contractors from across the country
Vanda Felbab-Brown outlines the harmful effects of the U.S.-Mexico border wall being built by the Trump administrative on Native Mexican communities, highly sensitive natural environments and biodiversity, and water sustainability in Mexico.
Federal Judge Settles Lawsuit on Harms to Border Environment
A federal judge in Arizona on Monday settled a lawsuit filed against the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection, saying the agencies failed to study potential harms to the environment from increased enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Homeland Security to repair damage created by border wall
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration said Friday that it will begin work to address the risks of flooding and soil erosion from unfinished sections of the wall on the U...
In crossing Arizona’s last free-flowing river, border wall construction also erodes trust
Cochise County officials and conservationists are frustrated that Customs and Border Protection is ignoring local input as it pushes ahead with a barrier across the San Pedro River, which flows north from Mexico and is one of the last undammed rivers in the Southwest.
In Crossing Arizona's Last Free-Flowing River, Border Wall Construction Results In 'Loss Of Trust'
Contractors continue to install new border barriers across the U.S.-Mexico border, including many across sensitive lands, including Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge and Cabeza Prieta National Monument.
Border people often inhabit this in-between space created by the separation and collision of two cultures. From KPBS and PRX, "Port of Entry" tells personal stories from this place — stories of love, hope, struggle and survival from border crossers, fronterizxs and other people whose lives are shaped by the wall. These are cross-border stories that connect us, brought to you by hosts Alan Lilienthal and Natalie Gonzales, producer Julio Ortiz, sound designer Luca Vega.
In February, President Trump declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border. Last year, he ordered thousands of National Guard troops to the border. Is this the first time an American president has responded with this level of force? In this week's episode, the history of militarization at the U.S.-Mexico border.
A surge in border crossings that wouldn’t be solved by a wall - The Washington Post
Nick Miroff on a surge in border crossings that is expected to go up. Peggy McGlone on a philanthropic family’s ties to the opioid crisis. And the president is on the phone ... just to talk.
A common humanity : ritual, religion, and immigrant advocacy in Tucson, Arizona - Lane Van Ham
As debate about immigration policy rages from small towns to state capitals, from coffee shops to Congress, would-be immigrants are dying in the desert along the US-Mexico border. Beginning in the 1990s, the US government effectively sealed off the most common border crossing routes. This had the unintended effect of forcing desperate people to seek new paths across open desert. At least 4,000 of them died between 1995 and 2009. While some Americans thought the dead had gotten what they deserved, other Americans organized humanitarian aid groups. A Common Humanity examines some of the most active aid organizations in Tucson, Arizona, which has become a hotbed of advocacy on behalf of undocumented immigrants. This is the first book to examine immigrant aid groups from the inside. Author Lane Van Ham spent more than three years observing the groups and many hours in discussions and interviews. He is particularly interested in how immigrant advocates both uphold the legitimacy of the United States and maintain a broader view of its social responsibilities. By advocating for immigrants regardless of their documentation status, he suggests, advocates navigate the conflicting pulls of their own nation-state citizenship and broader obligations to their neighbors in a globalizing world. And although the advocacy organizations are not overtly religious, Van Ham finds that they do employ religious symbolism as part of their public rhetoric, arguing that immigrants are entitled to humane treatment based on universal human values. Beautifully written and immensely engaging, A Common Humanity adds a valuable human dimension to the immigration debate.
Border wars : inside Trump's assault on immigration - Julie Hirschfeld Davis; Michael D. Shear
"Two New York Times Washington correspondents provide an inside account with never-before-told stories of the defining issue of Donald Trump's presidency: his steadfast opposition to immigration to the US. Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear have covered the Trump administration from its earliest days. In Border Wars, they take readers inside the White House to document how Trump and his allies blocked asylum-seekers and refugees, separated families, threatened deportation and sought to erode the longstanding bipartisan consensus that immigration and immigrants make positive contributions to America. Border Wars identifies the players behind Trump's anti-immigration policies, showing how they planned, stumbled, and fought their way toward major immigration changes that have further polarized the nation. This definitive, behind-the-scenes account is filled with previously unreported stories that reveal how Trump's decision-making is driven by gut instinct and marked by disorganization, paranoia, and a constantly feuding staff"--
President Biden is canceling projects to build a wall along the southern border using diverted defense funds and will use some funding to counter environmental damage from the wall’s con…
Harris defends telling migrants 'do not come,' not visiting US-Mexico border
Vice President Kamala Harris is facing backlash from conservatives for not having visited the southern border and from progressives for telling immigrants "Do not come."
We built the wall : how the US keeps out asylum seekers from Mexico, Central America and beyond - Eileen Truax; Diane Stockwell (Translator)
From a storefront law office in the US border city of El Paso, Texas, one man set out to tear down the great wall of indifference raised between the US and Mexico. Carlos Spector has filed hundreds of political asylum cases on behalf of human rights defenders, journalists, and political dissidents. Though his legal activism has only inched the process forward -- 98 percent of refugees from Mexico are still denied asylum -- his myriad legal cases and the resultant media fallout has increasingly put US immigration policy, the corrupt state of Mexico, and the political basis of immigration, asylum, and deportation decisions on the spot. We Built the Wall is an immersive, engrossing look at the new front in the immigration wars. It follows the gripping stories of people like Saul Reyes, forced to flee his home after a drug cartel murdered several members of his family, and Delmy Calderon, a forty-two-year-old woman leading an eight-woman hunger strike in an El Paso detention center. Truax tracks the heart-wrenching trials of refugees like Yamil, the husband and father who chose a prison cell over deportation to Mexico, and Rocio Hernandez, a nineteen-year-old who spent nearly her entire life in Texas and is now forced to live in a city where narcotraffickers operate with absolute impunity.
Legal borderlands : law and the construction of American borders - Leti Volpp (Editor); Mary L. Dudziak (Editor)
This collection focuses broadly on the role of law in the construction of U.S. borders and takes up an important question raised by the global turn in American studies scholarship: once territory becomes less critical to scholarship in the discipline, what constitutes the frame of American studies?
For this project, a "border" is not simply a territorial boundary. Borders are created through formal legal controls on entry and exit, through the construction of rights of citizenship and noncitizenship, and through the regulation of American power in other parts of the world. Where legal rights are at issue, borders and territory continue to play a powerful role, especially as certain spaces, such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are marked by the U.S. government as outside legal restraints on government power. Yet the law also extends the United States beyond its literal borders, through, for example, efforts to export democracy to the Middle East.
This is the first collection to map the intersection of law and American studies, and it captures the excitement of interdisciplinary work at this intersection.