My essay, The Ugly History at the Root of the Border Standoff, appeared in the March 3rd edition of the NYT Sunday Review. In the piece, I argue for analyzing current border disputes and much border policy as the latest iteration of the nation’s centuries old frontier wars.

Pleas for the humanity of immigrants, as are so often made by Democrats who note we are a nation of immigrants, do little to combat today’s border war mentality. Immigration policy appears to be ancillary or even irrelevant to the border warriors’ goals. “The goal should be zero illegal crossings a day,” said the House speaker, Mike Johnson, who criticized the bipartisan border deal that was dead on arrival.

Immigrants become unwitting actors in a national violent drama on the border. The piece draws from records obtained with the support of the Cornell and SMU law clinics during my years long investigation into border policies and extensive reporting along the South Texas borderlands.

After living within view of the border’s natural beauty and a portion of the border wall built during the Obama administration, I have come to understand when South Texans defend their parks and riverfronts they are resisting a mentality that makes violence seem inevitable and that now threatens to upturn our political landscape. They are reminding Americans that we are not condemned to recreate our past. “The governor is not a dictator. He doesn’t have a right to come to our community and tell us how to behave, to tell us not to go to our parks,” said one Eagle Pass resident, Jessie Fuentes.

If the coming election is about defending the nation’s democracy, as Democrats claim, then the party must decide if the vision it is selling us is built with razor wire.