“Borderline: Chaos at the Border” - Patrick Costello
Photo Credit: Artist EPK
Some songs don’t just land in your headphones—they slam down like a gauntlet. Borderline: Chaos at the Border, originally released in 2021 and now re-released in 2024, is exactly that: a razor-sharp protest anthem that refuses to be forgotten, refuses to soften, and refuses to let anyone look away from the brutality that’s still unfolding on the US–Mexico border.
Musically, the track straddles acoustic rock and alt-rock with a rawness that makes it impossible to tune out. You get that urgent strum, the kind that feels like a heartbeat under duress, pushing forward with unshakable momentum. Layered over it is a voice that’s part lament, part battle cry.
But it’s not just a song. The message is inseparable from the music. Borderline goes right for the jugular of US hypocrisy: how both parties, not just one side of the aisle, have historically backed coups, propped up violent narco-states, and then had the audacity to criminalize the refugees fleeing the destruction. There’s no hiding behind “well, it’s complicated.” The lyrics—and the fury behind them—make it plain: US complicity created the crisis, and xenophobia keeps it festering.
The re-release feels timely, almost like a necessary second strike. Sure, the Trump administration is called out explicitly for radicalizing ICE into a faceless terror force—but the track doesn’t let Biden or Obama off the hook either. This isn’t about partisan scorekeeping; it’s about exposing a system that has long put profit, power, and corporate interests above human lives. That’s the chaos: not at the border itself, but in the halls of power that built the border walls in the first place.
Photo Credit: Artist EPK
And then there’s the video—a multi-award-winning piece of work that elevates the track from powerful to unforgettable. It doesn’t just accompany the song, it deepens it. The imagery of displacement, resilience, and confrontation makes the politics uncomfortably human.
There’s anger in Borderline, but it’s not nihilistic anger. It’s anger laced with compassion, with the knowledge that the United States itself was built on immigration, on movement, on the mingling of cultures and peoples. To deny that is to deny history. To demonize immigrants is to spit on the very foundation the nation stands on.
In an age of watered-down protest music, Borderline: Chaos at the Border feels fearless. It doesn’t sugarcoat, doesn’t play it safe. It stares right into the ugliness of xenophobia, ICE raids, and 20-foot walls, and dares you to keep staring too.
This isn’t just a re-release. It’s a reminder. And a warning. And a demand: to see the humanity in the people at the border, and to never again allow politics to erase it.
“Borderline: Chaos at the Border” is available now on all major streaming platforms
