Trump deploys ‘surge’ of park rangers to patrol Mexican border
Diverting rangers is a way to direct federal resources to the border without the need for congressional approvalHelp us cover the critical issues of 2020. This Giving Tuesday, consider making a contributionMountain ridges in Zion national park, Utah. Photograph: Cheri Alguire/Getty Images/iStockphotoThe Trump administration is sending a new “surge” of rangers from US national parks such as Zion, Yosemite and the National Mall to patrol the southern border for crossings by illegal immigrants.
‘This touched everyone’: Walmart store reopens months after mass shooting
Three months after one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history, the Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, where 22 were killed in an August rampage reopened on Thursday amid tears and smiles from customers and staff as the border city continues to reel from the racially-driven tragedy.
National tragedy’: Trump begins border wall construction in Unesco reserve
In the face of protests by environmental groups, the wall will traverse the entirety of the southern edge of the monument. It is part of the 175 miles of barrier expansion along the US-Mexico border being funded by the controversial diversion of $3.6bn from military construction projects. This will include construction in Texas, New Mexico as well as Arizona where, according to a government court filing, some 44 miles of new barrier construction will pass through three federally protected areas.
New brew: the Native American women upending craft beer
Nowhere is this consumer movement more apparent, and unique, than at Bow & Arrow brewery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The first and only brewery in the US owned by Native American women, it has carved a space in the predominantly white and male-dominated industry by showcasing elements of their tribal identities, communities and ingredients through beer.
Death sentence’: butterfly sanctuary to be bulldozed for Trump’s border wall
On any given day at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, visitors can to see more than 60 varieties of butterflies. In the spring and fall, monarchsand other species can blanket the center’s 100 acres of subtropical bushlands that extend from the visitor center to to the banks of the Rio Grande river, where their property, and US sovereignty, ends. “It’s like something from Fantasia,” said the center’s director, Marianna Wright.
‘Juarez in a bottle’: Mexican moonshine made with snakes resurfaces in US
When the US banned alcohol production and importation in 1920, spirits from Mexico began illegally crossing the border. Alongside mass quantities of tequila was the lesser-known sotol: a north Mexican moonshine with a similar flavor profile. “We exported 300,000 liters during prohibition,” said Ricardo Pico, of the Chihuahua-based distillery Sotol Clande, who has spent years studying the drink.
‘Juárez in a bottle’: Mexican moonshine made with snakes resurfaces in US
When the US banned alcohol production and importation in 1920, spirits from Mexico began illegally crossing the border.
Alongside mass quantities of tequila was the lesser-known sotol: a north Mexican moonshine with a similar flavor profile.
He relives it all again’: the lasting impact of detention on immigrant children
A US federal judge on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s request to allow long-term detention of illegal immigrant children, a key part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to end the separation of immigrant families.
The lasting impact of detention on immigrant children: ‘He relives it all again’
The first memory Hilda Ramírez has of the United States is the sound of helicopters. Four years ago, she, her eight-year-old son, Ivan, and five other migrants from Central America piled into a small raft on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, the final step in a perilous trip through Mexico that she had begun one week before. When the group crossed the border near McAllen, Texas, they were immediately surrounded by Border Patrol agents, boats and a helicopter circling overhead.
The treasure hunters on a deadly quest for an eccentric’s $2m bounty
Sacha Johnston was inching along a dirt road in a narrow canyon in northern New Mexico. “Just guide me,” Johnston said to her search partner, Cory Napier, who directed Johnston and her white Toyota 4Runner. “This road can be brutal.”The pair had come to this starkly beautiful place, at the base of the Sangre De Cristo mountains, to hunt for a treasure rumored to be worth upwards of $2m.