Outside Nairobi, we stopped at the escarpment in the Great Rift Valley, which extends nearly 6,000 miles from Mozambique to the Red Sea. From my vantage point, I had a sweeping view of southern Kenya, a vast expanse of green and brown, with distant mountains under a mostly blue sky. To the south, I could see to the Kenyan-Tanzanian borderlands, where I was going. I was excited not only because the Maasai Mara was teeming with wildlife such as elephants, lions, giraffes, and leopards, but also because the Maasai have one of the most creative and practical approaches to borders. Borders, to the pastoral Maasai, are always movable and porous, never fixed, never hardened, never militarized.
Jenn Budd, the only former US Border Patrol agent to continually blow the whistle on this federal agency's rampant corruption, challenges us-as individuals and as a nation-to face the consequences of our actions. Her journey offers a vital perspective on the unfolding moral crisis of our time. She also gives harrowing testimony about rape culture, white privilege, women in law enforcement, LGBTQ issues, mental illness, survival, and forgiveness.
