The Border Chronicle

Mar 04 2025 68 ep. 45 mins 30
The Border Chronicle Podcast artwork

The Border Chronicle podcast is hosted by Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller. Based in Tucson, Arizona, longtime journalists Melissa and Todd speak with fascinating fronterizos, community leaders, migrants, activists, artists and more at the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Mass Deportations Will Tear Our Society Apart: A Q&A with David Bier, Immigration Expert with the Libertarian Cato Institute

Mar 04 2025 64 mins  
David Bier, director of immigration studies for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, goes in depth on what really happened to the U.S. immigration system during President Trump’s first administration and President Biden’s administration. In his January testimony before Congress, Bier noted that more than 30 times the courts found that Trump was enacting immigration pol

The Migrant Criminality Narrative: A Podcast with César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

Feb 13 2025 51 mins  
One of the nation’s top immigration scholars cuts through the crap and lays bare this moment of border and immigration control, how we got here, and where we’re headed.With Donald Trump, one thing has been constant since he announced his first campaign in 2016: the narrative that migrants are criminals. He says it with confidence and bluster, and he says it every day. But he go

What Is Texas’s Operation Lone Star, and What Happens If Trump Makes It a National Model? A Podcast with Texas Civil Rights Advocate Bob Libal

Feb 04 2025 51 mins  
In 2021 Texas governor Greg Abbott created Operation Lone Star, a state-funded system for immigration enforcement and detention. At a cost of more than $11 billion, the system has deployed thousands of National Guard soldiers and state police to the Texas-Mexico border. These deployments have become the backdrop for the MAGA movement’s “invasion” messaging, and they helped Tr

What’s Gonna Happen on the Border in 2025? A Podcast with Erika Pinheiro

Jan 09 2025 52 mins  
If you want to know about what’s to come on the border—what to expect, how it got to this point, and ways to fight back—put everything down right now and give this a listen. Well, here we are at the beginning of 2025, and it’s time to continue preparing ourselves for what’s to come (I hope you all saw Melissa’s Tuesday report on the Border Chronicle Forecast for 2025).

Reporter's Notebook: Melissa Talks About a New Binational Investigation on Border Militarization and Drownings in the Rio Grande

Dec 10 2024 29 mins  
On Sunday, The Washington Post, El Universal in Mexico, and Lighthouse Reports published “Death and Deterrence in the Rio Grande,” a yearlong investigation on drowning deaths of asylum seekers. As the U.S.-Mexico investigations editor for Lighthouse Reports, I helped collect the data, did reporting, and coordinated the binational investigation. We wanted to examine how border m

Border Chronicle Postelection Podcast

Nov 26 2024 55 mins  
In an episode that you’ve surely been waiting for, Melissa and Todd discuss what Trump’s election might mean for the border. This includes addressing the question, What is a “border czar”? The Donald Trump campaign seemed to know, spending the last several months claiming (falsely) that Kamala Harris had held this somewhat imaginary position under Joe Biden. And, then, afte

No Borders as a Practical Political Project: A Podcast with Nandita Sharma

Nov 21 2024 46 mins  
As the late Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano put it in his book Upside Down: A Primer for a Looking Glass World, the terminology used in mainstream political discourse often describes precisely the opposite of reality. Cut-throat capitalism is free trade. Violence is law and order. Extraction of natural wealth from communities is increasing revenue. So where does “border security

A Special Border Chronicle Election Podcast

Oct 29 2024 47 mins  
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 Patrio

A Live Podcast from Nogales with Educators Celia Concannon and Gustavo Lozano

Oct 08 2024 97 mins  
On September 7, we had the honor of leading a discussion with Celia Concannon and Gustavo Lozano, two longtime residents and educators from ambos Nogales, who have spent years teaching music and theater in local schools. We then had a Q&A with audience members, which you’ll hear at the end. The event was held downtown in Nogales, Arizona, on Morley Avenue, at the beautiful Wi

The Expanding Immigrant Detention Nexus: A Podcast with Jesse Franzblau

Oct 03 2024 49 mins  
Immigrant detention has doubled during Biden, which now wants to expand it more. But not if rights groups can help it, explains the senior policy analyst for the National Immigrant Justice Center. Since Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, there have been alarming trends in detentions and deportations undertaken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to the