A lucrative border-industrial complex keeps the US border in constant ‘crisis’ | Todd Miller

In 1994, the US's annual border and immigration budget was $1.5bn. In 2020, the budget exceeded $25bn - a 16-fold increase

I'll never forget Giovanni's blistered feet as an EMT attended to him on the Mexico side of the US-Mexican border in Sasabe, a remote desert town. On the back of one foot, his skin had been rubbed away and the tender, reddish, underlying tissue exposed. One toenail had completely ripped off. Giovanni, who was from a small Guatemalan town near the Salvadorean border, had just spent days walking through the Arizona desert in the heat of July.

When I think of the border crisis", I think of Giovanni's gashed feet. Stories of death and near death, of pain and immense suffering like this, happen every single day. This displacement crisis is not temporary; it is perpetual.