Journey To The U.S.-Mexican Border: Week In Review 6/3/2023

If you followed our coverage this week, you know special projects director Dylan Nolan and I took a trip to the Yuma sector of the U.S.-Mexican border earlier this week – spending several days on the front line of America’s ongoing illegal immigration crisis.

This edition of the Week In Review is the first of many upcoming reports detailing what we saw on our trip – and what we heard from people who have been living this issue for many years.

I’ll be honest: Misconceptions pushed by the mainstream media (and by fire-breathing ideologues at points all along the political spectrum) abound as it relates to the situation at the border. On the far left, radical progressives are eager to dismantle any and all barriers to entry into the United States. On the (very) far right, some xenophobes want to throw all of the “Mexicans” out of America – even though the vast majority of migrant border crossers are not Mexican nationals.

Sadly, such emotional perspectives unfortunately underpin much of the debate in this country about what we should do about our southern border.

Our goal in covering this issue? It’s the same goal for any issue we cover – to “seek and speak the truth while engaging in an open and vibrant marketplace of ideas.”

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At its most basic level, I believe this crisis is two-fold …

First, there are hardly any consequences or disincentives at the moment to entering the United States the wrong way – a climate of porous permissiveness which has invited an unprecedented wave of illegal crossings (and the crime and dependency that come with them). Drug cartels are systematically exploiting this climate – creating an ongoing humanitarian crisis at the southern border.

Second, legal immigration into this country has become hopelessly mired in politics and bureaucracy – creating a bottleneck which is fueling the first crisis. Former Yuma border chief Chris Clem – one of the experts you will hear from in this episode – said it best when he told us America should be a nation of “tall fences and wide gates.” Tall fences for security … and wide gates to allow those who truly want a better life (and legitimately want to contribute to our nation’s economy) to enter in an orderly, secure fashion and coexist with citizens in a fundamentally fair way.

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Unfortunately, as of this writing America has become a nation of broken fences (or no fences) – and chokepoints instead of gates. And things on all fronts are getting worse, not better. The are becoming less fair. More politicized – and more dangerous.

As I noted in the video, the amount of information we received during our visit to the border was nothing short of overwhelming – and is going to take a long time to process. Additionally, the amount of information I have sought out from other sources – progressive, liberal, Democratic, Republican, conservative and “MAGA” – is even more voluminous.

As we continue to engage this issue, I want to make sure anyone reading or watching our coverage who has an intelligent perspective they would like to share with our audience knows they can avail themselves of our longstanding open microphone policy at any time.

In fact, I believe we already have one or two opinion-editorial submissions related to the border issue in the works … so stay tuned for much more on this topic moving forward.

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SHOW NOTES

BORDER CRISIS

U.S. Border Chief Steps Down As Crisis Escalates
States Sue To Block New Biden Border Rule
Henry McMaster Dispatches National Guard Troops To Southern Border

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.

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