A note to BORDER/LINES readers

Dear readers,

Some four years ago, we started BORDER/LINES as an effort to be something of a bridge, one between the often surface-level daily coverage of significant shifts in immigration policy and practice and the detailed but somewhat inscrutable primary documents and legal writing around these shifts. The task seemed — and was — urgent, taken on during the term of a president who transformed the government’s approach to immigration without changing a single law, and drove state and local governments to either join the cause or try to thwart it.

We heard from friends who were reading a lot about immigration, but feeling like they understood little, and it was these conversations that spurred us to do this work. We didn’t know if anyone would care or read it, but we felt we had to try, and so we met one evening at a table in Washington Square Park to hash out the details on a little notepad, drawing on friends to come up with the name and design the logo. We sent out our first edition on September 20, 2019, not knowing what to expect. Some 160 editions later, we’ve heard from many of you — over emails, in phone calls, at conferences, even doing field reporting — about what BORDER/LINES has meant to you in cutting through the noise. For our small part in adding to public clarity over such a complex and significant issue, we’ll always be proud and grateful.

Some have been surprised that it really is just the two of us, doing all the research, writing, and editing for what are often three- or four-thousand-word dispatches. We’ve kept it up through personal and professional changes and shocks, through the pandemic, into another administration. Lately, though, it’s been difficult to find the time; Gaby is juggling multiple professional commitments and freelancing, and Felipe continues teaching while sitting on an editorial board and freelancing as well, both in an unpredictable and often unstable media environment. To be frank, we’re both a little burnt out.

The editions have gotten more infrequent, and our attempts to get back on track have gotten a bit derailed. The one thing we’ve always been adamant on is we wouldn’t compromise on the quality of the newsletter, rushing to get it done and introducing errors or just relying on off-the-cuff pontificating (though longtime readers will know we certainly have a voice). These realities have led us to the conclusion that it’s time to hit pause on BORDER/LINES. We don’t intend this to be a final goodbye, and hope that the project will continue in some form at some time, but that time unfortunately isn’t right now. We need some time to regroup and re-envision how to make this the newsletter that best serves readers and that we can handle consistently.

As such, we’ll be pausing subscriptions, and will be happy to refund any recent subscribers who’ve felt like they haven’t gotten the full BORDER/LINES experience. We are so grateful for the support we’ve already received from subscribers, paid and free, who have read and shared our work via word of mouth, newsletters, social media and elsewhere, and of course given us some funding for the trouble. While we take this period to think, we of course would also welcome thoughts and ideas for how to potentially bring the newsletter back, and we do really hope that the editions we’ve already put out can serve as an effective reference material for going deeper on immigration, from asylum policy to work visas to expedited removal to TPS. Thanks to you all.

All the best,

Felipe De La Hoz & Gaby Del Valle