An excerpt from Todd Miller's book Border Patrol Nation exposes the Tohono O’odham community's perseverence in the face of the increasing militarization on its ancestral lands.
A scathing report on the U.S. Border Patrol's use of deadly force reveals warzone conditions—the result of more than 25 years of Mexico-U.S. border militarization.
A shooting by a Border Patrol agent in southern California last week and a recent U.S. drone strike in Yemen that killed members of a weddding party share much: the persistent power of empire and its associated violence along the global "color line."
According to DHS’s numbers, apprehensions of Central American migrants increased by 55 percent in 2013 over the previous year, with data that indicates an exodus coming primarily from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
A new report documents the detrimental impact on families and communties brought about by the increased Border Patrol presence in the Olympic Peninsula area of Washington State. It also shows the importance and power of resistance to the Border Patrol's efforts to expand its geographical reach.
Jeh Johnson is the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, and thus oversees matters relating to U.S. immigration and boundary policing. An examination of his record makes clear that the new boss is more or less like the old boss. At the same time, Johnson brings baggage with him that is cause for worry.
While southern Arizona continues to be ground zero for the most extreme measures of border militarization today, it is also home to powerful nodes of civil resistance. On December 8, local residents from Arivaca and the surrounding area held their first protest at a Border Patrol checkpoint—one out of about a dozen located throughout the region. I documented the event in the video posted below.
Rocks—of various sizes and composition—are among the most ubiquitous landscape feature in many of the areas where the Border Patrol operates. If the Border Patrol’s use of deadly force policy continues unaltered, agents can potentially excuse virtually any deadly shooting, anywhere, under any circumstance.
"What we’ve been doing for a long time is trying to raise awareness about these official actions, whether they be by the state police, local police, or Border Patrol—law enforcement agencies that are roving around, knocking on doors, pulling cars over, taking people off the steps of churches, taking people out of grocery stores, drug stores, or following kids home from school."
Imagine the sort of metal police barricades you see at protests. These are unevenly lined up like so many crooked teeth on the Dominican Republic’s side of the river that acts as its border with Haiti. Like dazed versions of U.S. Border Patrol agents, the armed Dominican border guards sit at their assigned posts, staring at the opposite shore.
