La Frontera Through the Global Lense

Via the Az Daily Star aquí en Tucson

About 25 to 30 print and television journalists visit Tucson and the border each year through the International Visitor Leadership Program operated by the U.S. Department of State, said Eloise Brown, program director and president of the Tucson Council for International Visitors. Calabresi came with this program.

Whether lured by Cochise County's Wild West atmosphere, the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector's ranking as the busiest spot for illegal crossings along the nearly 2,000-mile border or the hundreds of border deaths since 1998, journalists have been coming for years, Daniels said.

"The issue of illegal immigration — we think of it as something that affects the United States and the United States alone, and it's actually something that affects many countries around the world," he said.

In 2006, among others, journalists from Italy, Indonesia, Poland and Romania visited Tucson as part of the State Department's International Leadership Program, Brown said.

The article examines the way different countries' journalists have journeyed to this region of the country to cover the often volatile debate regarding border policies. Here are some facets I hope any journalist from any country would take seriously.

• If one were to make a paper airplane out of a $1.00 bill and sail it from Nogales, Arizona to Nogales, Sonora - it would be worth nearly ten times its original value when it landed.
• There are still official references to the offensive idea of Manifest Destiny. Isn't that right, Department of State?
  
• If National Security is the reason for border enforcement, why has the U.S. sent an army of obelisks to protect us from Canadian invasion instead of armed troops like those in the backyard of southern Arizonans? It is twice as long...