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A Mexican family stands next to the border wall between Mexico and the United States, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on May 23, 2017.
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America’s Border Wall Is Bipartisan

Biden continues a tradition of building fences at the US-Mexico border that long precedes Donald Trump.
by Mary Mendoza via Made By History on October 30, 2023
A Border Patrol agent stands by an opening in the U.S. Mexico Border wall.
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Trump’s Border Wall Belongs to Biden Now

A border policy divorced from history can’t do what policymakers want.
by Kevan Q. Malone via Made By History on April 11, 2021

How the U.S. Weaponized the Border Wall

The borderlands have “been transformed into a vast graveyard of the missing.”
by Greg Grandin via The Intercept on February 10, 2019

How Not to Build a “Great, Great Wall”

A timeline of border fortification, from 1945 to the Trump Era.
by Greg Grandin via Tom Dispatch on January 13, 2019

Pancho Villa, Prostitutes and Spies: The U.S.-Mexico Border Wall’s Wild Origins

President Trump's trip to the border Thursday to demand a $5.7 billion wall marks another chapter in the boundary's tortured history.
by Michael E. Miller via Retropolis on January 10, 2019

Fracturing Landscapes: A History of Fences on the U.S.-Mexico Divide

History tells us that Trump's proposed wall will not work, and that it will do more damage than good.
by Mary Mendoza via OUPblog on September 4, 2018
The river between modern-day El Paso, TX and Ciudad Juarez, CH from the 1857 Mexican Boundary Survey

The River That Became a Warzone

The US-Mexico border wall is disrupting and destroying the lives of a united binational community.
by Zeke Peña via The Nib on December 21, 2017
Street vendors at the border crossing in Tijuana, 2006.

Fortifying the U.S.-Mexico Boundary

The 1993 “Hold the Line” experiment.
by Justin I. Salgado via Origins on June 8, 2024
The Falcon Dam on the Rio Grande, which runs across the US–Mexico border, Starr County, Texas, 2017.

Stopping the Old Rio Grande

In the 1950s the construction of a dam on the Texas–Mexico border displaced communities from their land—and anticipated the wall-building underway today.
by Caroline Tracey via New York Review of Books on January 11, 2024
An electrified barbed-wire fence around Fort Bliss in El Paso, Tex., near the Mexican border, in 1915 or 1916.

The Long, Ugly History of Barbed Wire at the U.S.-Mexico Border

The first barbed wire border fences were proposed to keep out Chinese migrants. They’ve been debated for over a century.
by David Dorado Romo via Retropolis on December 9, 2023

Trump's Border Wall Threatens an Arizona Oasis with a Long, Diverse History

Border wall construction is encroaching on a site where people from many cultures have interacted for thousands of years.
by Jared Orsi via The Conversation on December 4, 2019

The Wild West Meets the Southern Border

At first glance, frontier towns near the U.S.-Mexico border seem oblivious both of history and of the current political reality.
by Valeria Luiselli via The New Yorker on June 3, 2019
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The Only Real Solution to the Border Crisis

The United States must devise a program that addresses the root causes of migration.
by Chris Deutsch via Made By History on March 11, 2019

When the Frontier Becomes the Wall

What the border fight means for one of the nation’s most potent, and most violent, myths.
by Francisco Cantú via The New Yorker on March 4, 2019

Truman Declared an Emergency When He Felt Thwarted. Trump Should Know: It Didn’t End Well.

Truman seized control of the country’s steel mills during the Korean War. It led to a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court.
by Steve Hendrix via Retropolis on January 11, 2019
Trump looks at border wall construction prototypes.
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The Hole in Donald Trump’s Wall

As long as Americans continue to flood into Mexico, the wall will do little to deter crossings.
by Tore C. Olsson via Made By History on January 9, 2019
Border patrol guarding a group of men sitting on the ground.

The Long History of Deportation Scare Tactics at the U.S.-Mexico Border

The precedents for Trump’s hyped-up immigration crackdown.
by Kelly Lytle Hernández, Cora Currier via The Intercept on February 26, 2017
Border Patrol agents stand watch along a barrier.

Mass Deportations Are an American Tradition

Past presidents showed that removing millions of illegal aliens is achievable.
by Jacob Grandstaff via The American Conservative on February 17, 2025
Silhouettes of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, President Donald Trump, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in the Oval Office in the dark.

The Making of Emergencies

For centuries, theorists of liberal governance have worried about how emergencies can unfetter executive power. Trump has given those fears new urgency.
by Caroline Elkins via New York Review of Books on February 16, 2025
People holding signs for Trump and for deportation, in front of an American Flag.

How Immigration Became a Lightning Rod in American Politics

Anti-immigrant think tanks and advocacy groups operated on the margins until Trump became president. Now they have molded not only the GOP but also Democrats.
by Gaby del Valle via The Nation on September 25, 2024
Collage of various Republican faces and symbols.

The Long Unraveling of the Republican Party

Three books explore a history of fractious extremism that predates Donald Trump.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Atlantic on September 6, 2022
Migrants feet and bags after being dropped off within view of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington on Aug. 11.
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The Disturbing Precedent for Busing Migrants to Other States

In the 19th century, Americans dumped poor migrants overseas. Now some governors are shipping them off to other states.
by Hidetaka Hirota via Made By History on August 16, 2022
Fort Huachuca in 1894.

The American Maginot Line (Pt. 2)

Exploring the history of U.S. empire through the story of Fort Huachuca – the “Guardian of the Frontier.”
by Alex Aviña via Foreign Exchanges on September 27, 2021
Richard Nixon speaking to the press in 1971

New Documents Reveal the Bloody Origins of America's Long War On Drugs

When President Nixon launched the war on drugs in 1971, it set off a bloody chain reaction in Mexico as new documents reveal.
by Benjamin T. Smith via TIME on August 24, 2021
A view looking up at the Statue of Liberty

Immigration: What We’ve Done, What We Must Do

Once, abolitionists had to imagine a world without slavery. Can we similarly envision a world where migrants are offered justice?
by Allison Brownell Tirres via Public Books on March 2, 2021

The Republican Choice

How a party spent decades making itself white.
by Clare Malone via FiveThirtyEight on June 24, 2020
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For 25 Years, Operation Gatekeeper Has Made Life Worse for Border Communities

The policy of "prevention through deterrence" has been deadly.
by Pedro Rios via Made By History on October 1, 2019

The Myth of the American Frontier

Greg Grandin’s new book charts the past and present of American expansionism and its high human costs.
by Jedediah Britton-Purdy via The Nation on April 1, 2019

How Violent American Vigilantes at the Border Led to Trump’s Wall

From the 80s onwards, the borderlands were rife with paramilitary cruelty and racism. But the president’s rhetoric has thrown fuel on the fire.
by Greg Grandin via The Guardian on February 28, 2019
A private security guard throws a soccer ball back inside the Tornillo detention camp for migrant teens in Tornillo, Texas, Dec. 13, 2018.

A Historian on How Trump’s Wall Rhetoric Changes Lives in Mexico

The U.S. did not always find it necessary to lock up people seeking asylum.
by Ana Raquel Minian, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on February 15, 2019
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