For nearly three decades, Arizona-based author and journalist Todd Miller has been immersed in the real-life people and policies that define the U.S.-Mexico border.
After Sept. 11, 2001, when the Department of Homeland Security took over immigration and law enforcement, he traveled across the border multiple times a week with BorderLinks, a community organization dedicated to education along the Arizona-Chiapas border and social justice. He later became a contributor to the nonprofit North American Latin American Conference, which analyzes and publishes trends in Latin America, and wrote four books about the U.S. border. In 2021, Miller co-founded the Border Chronicles weekly newsletter with co-founder, investigative journalist and author Melissa del Bosque, where she writes stories and hosts podcasts.
Much of the book provides a nuanced contrast to the false and derogatory characterizations of Latin American immigrants that American politicians have spread over the years.
During the current presidential campaign cycle, for example, former President Donald Trump falsely insisted that “many, many terrorists” were entering the United States through the Mexican border—echoing his 2016 campaign's violent depictions of immigrants. Mueller and the State Department said that in fact, no known terrorists have entered the United States through the Mexican border.
Climate change has become a growing theme during Miller's time south of the border.
During countless reporting trips and research for international investigations and reports, he observed in real time climate events displacing residents in Latin America and other parts of the world, as he documented in his 2017 book, Breaking the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and the Homeland Safety.
Worryingly, the climate pattern has changed significantly since 2017.
Yale Climate Connection spoke with Miller to better understand who is trying to cross the U.S. border, what climate factors drive their journey, and how U.S. policy and presidential candidates influence the narrative.
Yale Climate Link: How is climate change most often present in the story of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border today?
Todd Miller: Documenting people displaced by climate change is a daunting task, to say the least. It is often multifaceted. For example, I've interviewed many farmers in Central America, and the problem is often not being able to harvest because there's no rain or the season is disrupted. The rain is not that reliable, or it comes at the wrong time. Then there is no money.
The fact that they have no money as a buffer puts people in crisis. A family member might first go to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, or Guatemala City, and then find a crap job that doesn't pay at all in these more dangerous cities with more organized crime. We often hear part of this story, but underneath it is a climate story.
YCC: As a result, climate remains an invisible actor in many of these stories.
miller: I keep coming back to the work of writer Christian Parenti [author of “Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence”] Call it “catastrophic convergence.” All these factors are coming together, including economic, political and judicial issues. Then suddenly came the climate problem, which is a newer problem but one that is getting worse. Because of this, it's difficult to know how many people are moving and when climate becomes the underlying cause. Sometimes it is the last straw, such as when a flood or drought strikes.
YCC: You shared some difficult stories and climate data in your 2017 book Breaking the Wall. What part of this project impressed you the most?
miller: One of the places I focused on was Central America, but I also highlighted the Philippines. This is one of the most obvious examples that climate change is right in your face, obvious and ongoing. No one is saying climate change doesn’t exist.
This is also a personal choice because my grandmother is Filipino. She is from Marinduque, a heart-shaped island among the 7,000 islands in the Philippines. I went there to meet with officials who are studying future risks and climate change. My grandmother's island is completely threatened, and a big factor is rising sea levels. So I went to one of the beaches and we found an abandoned house. The waves were literally crashing inside the house, which had been destroyed by the water. It felt like looking at the carcass of a whale on a beach—this thing that was once alive and inhabited was now dead.
YCC: Wow. Did the local community witness this?
I interviewed a middle-aged fisherman near that house, who pointed to a buoy bobbing in the waves where the waterline once was. He said they had moved the entire community back once before. I'm really shocked that I'm on my grandmother's island now and that this island may not exist in the future. At the time, I was five months away from having my first child. So the thought of future generations is on my mind, from the beginning of the 20th century when my grandmother lived in Marinduque to the life of my child, who was not yet born but would probably live until the end of the 21st century. This is the spirit of “rushing against the wall”.
YCC: Since the book was published in 2017, the climate story and data have changed significantly, especially when it comes to droughts, hurricanes and other life-threatening changes. If you were writing this book today, what would you emphasize?
My first thought was to Central America, starting with the severe drought in 2018. . In 2018, they released a survey showing that 2.2 million people in the region faced hunger. In early 2021, the World Food Program conducted another survey and this number increased to nearly 8 million people. In about two years, the number of people facing hunger has almost quadrupled.
They attribute this largely to two devastating Category 4 hurricanes that hit back-to-back in late 2020, as well as drought and the coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, the surveys, taken two years apart, showed the number of people with specific plans to immigrate jumped from 8% to nearly 15%.
YCC: As climate refugees head north, what kind of support do they find in the United States?
There is no climate refuge in the United States. It doesn't matter if your home is destroyed or you lose your job or livelihood. If someone's house is destroyed by a hurricane, then [for example] A gang must occupy their community and they must feel threatened by the gang in order to make an asylum claim. This is something that needs to change. We are seeing a world of mass displacement.
YCC: In the current U.S. presidential campaign, we've heard a lot about criminal immigration and violence at the Mexican border. What do you think of all this?
miller: Trump has always been fond of hyperbole, especially on the campaign trail. He campaigned so aggressively on the border that he called Kamala Harris the “border czar.” He wanted to paint a picture based on the lies his campaign initially laid out about Biden. At the heart of these lies is open borders. Portraying Harris as a border czar implies that she promotes an open border system. As a result, he promised a firm platform on border enforcement: “I'm going to stop all these bad guys from coming into this country.” Trump appears to be continuing the rape rhetoric he made when he began his campaign in 2016.
There are countless studies, every study I've seen on so-called immigrant crime shows that neighborhoods with undocumented people have very low crime rates. It has been shown over and over again. The idea that a higher proportion of criminals cross the border is exaggerated. But that’s a good thing for voters looking for a scapegoat. The immigrant scapegoat has been around for decades.
YCC: How has President Biden handled border issues over the past four years?
Biden's budget for border and immigration enforcement is higher than Trump's previous budgets. He did not change border strategy at all. In fact, it's much more solid at this point. I prefer to look at the budget rather than the rhetoric and see what they are really doing at the border. Both Trump and Biden are alike in this regard.
YCC: What would you expect if Harris were elected president?
Most recently, as vice president, she infamously told Guatemalan immigrants “not to come” to the United States. It does appear that she will follow the path of the Biden presidency. She has said she will continue the asylum restrictions Biden announced in June and will push for the strong-enforcement border bill. She has a background as a prosecutor, and we have photos of her with border enforcement agents. I expect deportations will be very onerous and increase law enforcement budgets.
This interview has been edited and modified for clarity and brevity.
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