|
2006: “Border Crossings: Policy, Practice and Politics’
A firsthand look at immigration
as the national debate heats up
As the immigration debate erupted onto the front-pages in 2006, 10 IJJ fellows and their editors got a ground-level view of the issue through a series of seminars and field trips on the Arizona-Sonora border.
Led by Senior Fellow Marc Cooper and IJJ Director Steve Montiel, the Border Justice Fellows participated in the Tucson-based series of seminars and field trips January 9-16, 2006.
The Fellows spent time in Altar, Mexico; rode along with both the U.S. Border Patrol and the religious activists known as the Samaritans; witnessed the proceedings in a Federal Immigration Court, and toured a federal immigration detention center. They also met with a wide range of academic experts, members of Congress, Mexican government officials, federal law enforcement officials, human rights workers, as well as immigrant and business community advocates.
In early June, the fellows reconvened for four days in Tucson, this time with their editors and supervisors. A follow-up visit to Altar revealed that the flow of migrants into the U.S. was continuing at surprising levels in spite of triple-digit heat and the recent deployment of National Guard to the border.
The fellows and their editors also participated in discussion with writer and journalist Luis Alberto Urrea, author of several prize-winning books on border life. Dr. Wayne Cornelius, noted immigration scholar from UC San Diego, made a presentation of his findings on the patterns and contours of the migrant flow.
The fellowship has produced a rich bounty of individual and team projects across all media platforms. A multimedia team of Fellows from the Charlotte Observer, its Charlotte.com website and WCNC-TV, which is the Belo Corp.-owned NBC affiliate in Charlotte, has produced an impressive package of coordinated print, web and TV reports. Other projects include radio reports for public radio’s Marketplace, a series of editorials and features in the Arizona Republic, a TV series for Univision and various other reports in the Houston Chronicle, The Atlantic, Rumbo, the Tucson Citizen and the Associated Press.
2003-2004: ‘Issues from the U.S.-Mexico Borderland’
Print and broadcast reporters get
on-scene look at immigration issues
Seventeen journalists took part in the first Border Justice Fellowships “Covering the Border: Issues from the U.S.-Mexico Borderland,” which began in November 2003. The Fellows included both print and broadcast reporters, ranging from those based in Washington to regional correspondents and reporters working immigration and racial diversity beats.
The fellowship program began with an eight-day “rolling seminar” along the U.S.-Mexican border held in conjunction with Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism Fellows . The goal was to immerse the 28 participating journalists in the ground-level realities of border justice issues while reserving time to engage them in related academic discussions through two day-long seminars.
During the eight-day program, the Fellows spent time in San Diego, Calif.; Tijuana, Baja California; Tucson, Sells and Douglas, Ariz.; the borderlands reservation of the Tohono O’odham Nation; and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico. They met with residents and activists of Mexican slum neighborhoods, Mexican journalists and human rights activists, U.S. Border Patrol officials and an INS Commissioner from the Clinton Administration, among others.
In April 2004, during the program’s second phase, the Fellows discussed and more fully developed their projects with the participation of their editors or producers. Border Justice Fellows made a commitment to producing projects focusing on border justice issues as well as “Story Behind the Story” accounts.
|
