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Border Journalists Shed Light on Importance of Open Government for 'Sunshine Week'

Michael Hernandez

http://youtu.be/nu-TAAVGS5g

Journalists rely on sunshine laws to shed light on government agencies and hold them accountable. In honor of “Sunshine Week,” border reporters met at New Mexico State University to discuss the critical role transparency plays in their work.

Lauren Villagran is a border correspondent for Searchlight New Mexico, a nonprofit news organization with a focus on investigative journalism.

Part of Villagran’s job is to get information from agencies like the U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection. Because of that, Villagran said it can be frustrating to get at the truth directly.

It can be really frustrating because sometimes it seems like those communications departments are dedicated to directing journalists in a different direction or obfuscating the truth or promoting particular stories that serve a political purpose and you know as a journalist, as a representative of the public at large in a way and as a taxpayer I wish it wasn’t that way," Villagran said. "I feel like our law enforcement agencies who work on the border do an important job and it’s important for taxpayers to understand exactly how that job is being done.”

Jobs performed by Border Patrol agents like Joe Romero. A 13-year veteran, Romero works in the agency’s El Paso Sector. He said he understands frustrations with the system.

But Romero said agents may only talk about investigations in the Border Patrol’s jurisdiction. If another agency takes over a case, he said they no longer own that information.

“And that’s why we do direct people to say ‘Well if you want to know this, we’ll direct you to the CBP Public Affairs because at that point CBP owns the information, we don’t. We simply pass the information on. If we own the information, nine times out of 10 you will get some type of response from us. Not all of the responses you’ll get you’ll like but we will give you what we have and what we’re able to," Romero said.

Las Cruces Sun-News reporter Diana Alba-Soular has covered the border off and on during her nearly 15 years at the paper. She was part of the USA Today Network team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its 2017 coverage of President Trump’s proposed border wall.

Under the Trump administration, Alba-Soular said she’s seen interest in border issues rise significantly.

“It’s sort of ebbed and flowed but it’s increased significantly in the last couple of years," Alba-Soular said. "Due to Trump having made it a big issue in the campaign and all of the debate that’s come of that. And probably, he tapped into some emotion that was already there among people about the border. So, there’s just more interest, more attention being paid to it than I think ever before since I’ve been a reporter.”

Assaults on the media have also increased during that span.

Dozens of journalists worldwide are killed each year for doing their jobs. President Trump frequently attacks reporters as “enemies of the people.” The Trump administration even created a secret list to track journalists and immigrant advocates reporting on migrant caravans at the border.

Villagran finds that last point beyond alarming.

“I don’t think the word alarming covers it. I think that that’s terrifying, not just for the journalists who are on that list but for American democracy," Villagran said.

While immigration and border security become more politicized, Romero said the Border Patrol is apolitical and enforces polices regardless of the parties making them.

"Now we talk about people coming across and well all of a sudden now we’re trying to prosecute them. No. Since 1929 the law has been in effect. 1930 was the first time that people were actually prosecuted in large numbers that were coming across illegally. Since 1930 that hasn’t changed. The amount of tension that’s been brought to it has," Romero said.

In light of that tension, Villagran said she and her colleagues have a major responsibility not only to report the facts but also to be careful with the words they choose. She said that’s because inflammatory language can lead to lack of understanding about an already complex topic like the border.

A Florida native, Villagran moved to El Paso in her early twenties for her first job. A few months after she began, she realized lawmakers creating border policy should be forced to spend two weeks in the city to understand what life there is like.

“When I first moved here I lived Juarez for a few months and I had the experience of every day crossing the border to go to work so that you understand really what it’s like to wait in that line. To be treated the way that you can be treated by a CBP Customs officer. The waits that you experience whether you’re in a car or on foot. And then just also sort of the incredible cultural experience of living on the border and having family and friends on both sides," Villagran said.

"There are positives and negatives to living here," Villagran added "and policies that are made by people who don’t understand the daily logistics, business or cultural components of a life kind of on the borderline between two countries really are missing the point in some ways.”

The point, Villagran said, is that the more journalists can help border voices be heard, the more policymakers can listen.

Michael Hernandez was a multimedia reporter for KRWG Public Media from late 2017 through early 2020. He continues to appear on KRWG-TV from time to time on our popular "EnviroMinute" segments, which feature conservation and citizen science issues in the region.