Nearly 40 years after an armed sheriff, anti-LGBTQ activists and a judge’s order shut down the Gay Rodeo Finals, this year the riders came home.
Law enforcement
Posted inNovember 2025: Precious Metalheads
Attack of the owls, emu-cipated emus, and say ‘hi’ to the bumpy little snailfish
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inArticles
ICE raids in Colorado highlight how violent the U.S. has become
After migrating to Canada, a journalist reckons with the grief and gratitude of having left.
Posted inOctober 2025: Limits to Growth
Ventura County is turning former farmland into affordable housing for farmworkers
This California county has some of the nation’s strictest protections for agricultural land, but developers are using a new exemption to house people who work the land.
Posted inArticles
Firefighters question leaders’ role in ICE raid near Bear Gulch Fire
Firefighting veterans believe the management team overseeing fire crews played a key role in handing team members over to immigration authorities.
Posted inSeptember 2025: Who Controls Our Food?
How an immigration raid reshaped meatpacking — and America
In 2006, large-scale ICE raids in Greeley, Colorado, and elsewhere, triggered changes to the center of the country that fed today’s nativist politics.
Posted inAugust 2025: Fire Culture
Chicken buckets, baked beans, liters of coke: the final meals of death row inmates
Julie Green painted the last meals served to people sentenced to die in an attempt to humanize capital punishment.
Posted inArticles
Law enforcement surveilled Nevada lithium mine protesters, according to records
Activists opposed to the Thacker Pass mine were ‘under the microscope’ for years.
Posted inArticles
Amid raids in California, families struggle to locate detained workers
Days after the workplace immigration raids that first sparked protests in Los Angeles, families still had no contact with relatives in detention.
Posted inArticles
Trump’s border wall expansion endangers wildlife and habitat
Migration pathways for animals will be further fragmented by the new additions to the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Posted inArticles
At the 2025 U.N. Forum on Indigenous Issues Trump’s border policies will play a major role
At this year’s largest gathering of global Indigenous leaders, activists and policymakers, Borderlands issues are expected to have a big impact.
Posted inArticles
Immigrants feel hope, hate and hunted
Under the Trump administration, immigrants across the West worry for their safety.
Posted inArticles
Los inmigrantes sienten esperanza, odio y se sienten perseguidos
Bajo la administración Trump, los inmigrantes de todo el oeste temen por su seguridad.
Posted inArticles
A billion-dollar ICE contractor is fighting to pay detainees as little as $1 a day
GEO Group, whose stock is valued at $4 billion, says that state minimum wage laws don’t apply to work migrants perform where they’re detained.
Posted inArticles
ICE in your community? Here’s what to know.
Advocates say people who face less legal risk have an important role to play, from documenting raids to advocating for their neighbors.
Posted inFebruary 2025: Immigrant Stories
Unhoused people pay a disproportionate price for the West’s deadly roads
People experiencing homelessness are more likely to die from transportation-related injuries than the general population.
Posted inArticles
Why did Nevada vote to ban slavery, when California didn’t?
Both states require incarcerated people to work — often for critical and dangerous jobs.
Posted inArticles
In rural Washington, a ‘constitutional sheriff’ and his growing volunteer posse provoke controversy
Where some see a ‘rural neighborhood watch’ that saves money, others worry about liability and ties to extremism.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing
The fatal flaw in the Border Patrol’s rescue program
The Missing Migrant Program is meant to prevent deaths. Instead, it may be causing them.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing
La falla fatal en las operaciones de rescate de la Patrulla Fronteriza
La agencia tiene la tarea de salvar a migrantes en peligro pero puede estar empeorando las cosas.