Photographer Laurie Smith

10/22/2025

I’m excited to share the news that this photograph from my One Landscape Divided series, “Hand of Border Patrol at the Wall, El Paso Texas 2022” has been selected for the Threshold 2025 Exhibition at CPAC November 21, 2025 – January 3, 2026. An opening reception is on Saturday, November 22, 2025, from 5 - 8pm. Juror, Karen Haas, is the Lane Senior Curator of Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Colorado Photographic Arts Center

10/05/2025

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Living in fear. Hiding. Separated from family. Torn from children. Detained. Alligator Alcatraz. Deported. El Salvador. Rwanda. Sudan. Back to dangerous homelands. Dying. In the desert. Remains in the sand. Bones bleaching in the sun. How can our heartless country ever be forgiven?
crisis

08/20/2025

Trump wants the entire stretch of border wall painted black to burn the hands of those who attempt to climb it.
Homeland Security’s Kristi Noem said, “That is specifically at the request of the president, who understands that in the hot temperatures down here when something is painted black it gets even warmer and it will make it even harder for people to climb. So we are going to be painting the entire southern border wall black to make sure that we encourage individuals to not come into our country illegally.” She also added that the black paint will help to prevent the 30 foot steel bollard wall from rusting.
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08/15/2025

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) is a US-based labor organization dedicated to improving the lives of day laborers, migrants, and low-wage workers! The network’s mission is to build leadership and power among marginalized communities, enabling them to challenge inequality and expand labor, civil, and political rights. The network also advocates for migrant justice and worker rights.

06/30/2025

Trump’s BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL designates
$46.5 BILLION for the BIG BEAUTIFUL WALL,
while the effectiveness of continuing to build a border wall is debated.

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-budget-congress-trump-bill-e37bb0a5c5ca883438db349239a6c251?user_email=67c0aa045540d43e43d57e888e81ffbdfe195f3ca3d40796d1ba3fc632074454&utm_medium=Afternoon_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=AfternoonWire_June25_2025&utm_term=Afternoon%20Wire

06/29/2025

Honored to have “Saguaro at the Wall” selected to exhibit with such brilliantly creative photographs at the Annual Members Show, curated by Anne Leighton Massoni of . Exhibit runs through August 2nd.

06/14/2025

06/10/2025

E. Tammy Kim reporting for The New Yorker Magazine.

06/02/2025

Judging by the optics, the borderland is now a war zone. Since 2016 I have driven the dirt road that abuts the border wall from El Paso, TX to Columbus, NM, on self-assigned recognizance missions to see what might unfold.  I rarely encounter a soul, except for an occasional border patrol agent, cruising this desolate 90-mile stretch of the border. I see breaches in the wall—most patched like a quilt where smugglers cut squares for migrants to slip through. I’ve watched the wall grow, once fractured, now filling in. I often find what’s left behind in the sand: dropped by migrants arrested, fleeing in the night, or lost to the desert.

But late in April, I came upon a series of small, laminated signs stapled to stakes hammered into the dirt.  The signs are a warning: by the authority of the Commander of the Department of Defense, any trespassers will be detained and searched, and any photographs, drawings or notes of the area will be confiscated. This stretch along the border has been re-designated as a military base.  It is now off-limits to public access.

To curb migrant flow, despite a dramatic decrease in crossings, a national defense area has been established along the southern border in West Texas and New Mexico. This move allows the administration to bypass the Posse Comitatus Act, historically barring military domestic law enforcement.
This order comes on the heels of the deployment of 1,100 active-duty soldiers and several armed Stryker military vehicles along the border. Detention centers are being built on military bases and airlifts to deport migrants are being provided by the Department of Defense.

“The United States of America now has the dubious distinction of joining China, Russia, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, North Korea in having a highly militarized border. This doesn’t increase our safety or security–it is in fact an abuse of our military personnel and assets,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar.

For the time being, I will not be allowed access to document what is unfolding at the border wall.  But I’ll find a way around it. This administration has inadvertently shown me how.