A group of SRI participants at the border wall in New Mexico. (Angel Cancino/Borderzine.com)

Journalists file their stories after participating in UTEP’s immigration reporting workshop

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EL PASO – Twenty journalists from all regions of the United States gathered at the University of Texas at El Paso this fall to learn strategies and tools for reporting about immigration in their home communities. The workshop, “Reporting Immigration: From the Border to the Heartland,” was sponsored by the McCormick Foundation and Borderzine. Borderzine is proud to re-publish the online, print and broadcast stories that the journalists are reporting from New York, Atlanta, Phoenix, areas of Texas and other parts of the nation. The topics they explore include the deaths of undocumented immigrants on the Texas-Mexico border, increased scrutiny of abuses by immigration agents, growing asylum requests from Mexicans who say they are victims of persecution in their country, immigration enforcement at the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez border, and coverage by U.S. women journalists of the deaths of hundreds of girls and young women in Ciudad Juarez. Their stories, published first in the journalists’ local news outlets, are part of the complex and ongoing story of immigration to the U.S. from Latin America and other parts of the globe.

Father Bob Mosher, from the Columban Mission Center, Melissa López, from the El Paso Catholic Diocese Center for Immigrant and Refuge Services, Fernando García, director of the Border Network for Human Rights, Katie Anita Hudak, director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. (Aaron Montes/Borderzine.com)

U.S. journalists seek to learn from immigration advocates and get an earful: We didn’t invite you to darles una regañada… but you need to earn back the public’s trust

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EL PASO – The American media still has a lot of work to do. It has not fulfilled its responsibility covering the stories of the millions of immigrants that live in the United States, and has not fully challenged the narrative that has dominated the immigration debate for the last decade and a half, a panel of border activists and immigration experts agreed this last weekend. In front of the five panelists, a roomful of journalists listened to their concerns and ideas as part of the first Specialized Reporting Institute on Immigration Reform held in El Paso, TX and sponsored by the McCormick Foundation. The twenty reporters from all over the country and a dozen journalism students sat in silence inside the auditorium of Centro de Salud Familiar La Fe on Sept. 28 as they listened to the concerns of the immigration advocates.