PHOTO ESSAY
by Maria Davydenko, Octavio González, and Victoria Rietig
“La biblia es la verdad…”
“Before we can talk about co-responsibility on the border issue, we have to address responsibility. Even with the Mérida Initiative, neither the US nor Mexico is there yet.” – John Hoag, MPP 2013
Seeing the border through Border Patrol’s eyes.
View from outside Otero County Processing Center
Where El Paso meets Juarez “Co-responsibility at the border means not only governments taking responsibility, but the people of Mexico and the United States taking responsibility at every level.” – Anya Malkov, MPP 2013
The border from the Juarez side
On the factory floor at the maquila
Meeting the activists at Centro de los Derechos Humanos in El Paso Norte, Juarez .
“It is clear in speaking with the people from the Centro in Juarez that they believe that the
Mexican government is truly corrupt. I had a really powerful conversation with a gentleman in El Paso. He said to me, ‘Problems have been building up over decades to put Mexico in its current position with the violence, drug war, and corruption. The policies being implemented right now are trying to solve those problems in just a few years, and they are trying to do it with bullets.’ His words stay with me. Democracy in Mexico is being tested right now by the culture of corruption. It is affecting everything—it is affecting us.” – Alberto Gonzalez, Jr., MPP 2013
Group picture at the border
“We’ve seen how poor education ties to drug use, how higher drug use feeds cartels, how cartels feed violence, and how that violence feeds migration patterns. We see all these links, but we need to get past the negative feedback loops to cycles that can create ameliorative processes.” – Loren Gary, Associate Director, Center for Public Leadership
The border west of El Paso “A web of government stakeholders touches this issue at every level. But this web is not as connected as I thought. Hearing about the lack of communication between the El Paso Mayor’s office and the ICE team—and others—has made me realize there are still many gaps. There are a lot of people heavily invested in helping immigrant communities, but government actors are not as closely connected as I expected.” – Jeanette Acosta, MPP 2012
An unexpected encounter
Our first meeting with A-House staff to talk Borderlands 101 “A web of government stakeholders touches this issue at every level. But this web is not as connected as I thought. Hearing about the lack of communication between the El Paso Mayor’s office and the ICE team—and others—has made me realize there are still many gaps. There are a lot of people heavily invested in helping immigrant communities, but government actors are not as closely connected as I expected.” – Jeanette Acosta, MPP 2012
View from the top of Annunciation House
Jeanette Acosta (MPP ’12) and Salmon Hussein (MPP ’13) speak with the ICE Counsel
Parting serenade from Mayor of El Paso John Cook
“Talking to the mayor was heartening. It reminded me that there are officials out there with two things going for them: they are in touch with their constituents and know what is happening in their community, but knowledgeable and eloquent enough about politics to be good representatives of their constituents on a higher political level.” – Victoria Rietig, MPP 2013