Truthout ran an excerpt of From The Ashes:
The border is a process as much as a place, a decision to rescue a boat drifting at sea, or to slash a bottle left by volunteers in the desert, to crush and piss on stashes of food and clothing, to wave someone through and search another car, to ask a job applicant or a person stopped for speeding to produce citizenship documents. Policies change, politicians pound the table and pontificate, but day after day the processes at the border, of the border, go on. This posturing, like so much else, obscures the actual humans from the picture. “I don’t think people understand just how violent border policies are,” Zerda said. Thousands, tens of thousands die in the borderlands; mass graves have been uncovered across Texas. For those who survive the trek, violent assault, dehydration, heatstroke, injuries, and the looming threat of arrest and deportation, the trip having been all for nothing, await.