Cole Brennan

His story

Cole grew up an hour from the Mexican border outside Tucson. His father was a county sheriff’s deputy, and dinner-table talk was about smuggling routes, overdoses and ranchers who found strangers on their land.

He served as an Army Ranger with two combat tours, then came home and became a reporter in the border region of Arizona and Texas. He has ridden along with agents, camped with ranchers on the line and talked with migrants and the families of fentanyl victims.

He covers the border the way he lived it: up close and without slogans.