Project

The Bridge over the Rio Grande and a Town at a Crossroads

This project examines immigration through the interstitial: on the bridge in Laredo over the Rio Grande and in Dilley, a small town just past the edge of the borderlands that is home to the largest immigration detention center in the country. The reporting studies place and profits. As the Trump administration dismantles the asylum system, those seeking protection are forced back into the hands of organized criminal groups across the river from border cities like Laredo. As the immigration detention archipelago expands, small, struggling towns across rural America, like Dilley, seek economic revival through for-profit detention.