Morgan Smith

“Mexico is the draw and we’re along the way,” says Mayor Philip Skinner of the tiny village of Columbus, noting how the violence across the border in Palomas, Mexico and further south had cut into the number of visitors who passed through Columbus, thus hurting the local economy. He was speaking at a recent and historic meeting of local political leaders from both sides of the border, stretching from Silver City in the north to Casas Grandes to the south. The meeting took place in Columbus and he was the organizer and this driving force in this bi-national effort…

Families and young people decide to flee the horrendous violence in their Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, arrive on our border after a terrifying journey through Mexico and surrender themselves to our immigration authorities. Suddenly we have another immigration crisis.

What happens?

Congress argues but does nothing. President Obama ponders and then defers until after the elections. Is anyone going to do anything this humanitarian crisis? Allegra Love from Santa Fe is one of the very few…

It’s devastating news. Charles “Chuck” Bowden died last Saturday evening of an apparent heart problem. The author of Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields; El Sicario; Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family; A Shadow in the City and many other books and articles, he was a true hero in terms of his work in Juárez and the border. Everyone talks about immigration and border issues but Chuck was one of the few who was actually there, again and again, in the most dangerous times and the most deadly places…

Governor Rick Perry orders 1,000 National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border. President Obama urges the Presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to focus on their “shared responsibility” for the influx of migrant children from their countries. But where are Governor Perry’s troops going to go and what are they going to do? And what responsibility does President Obama think we have for this crisis?…

With the defeat of Eric Cantor, immigration reform may be dead for the near future. Nonetheless, there are heroes out there who won’t be deterred by Congressional dysfunction. One of them is Reverend John Fife who was recently in Santa Fe.

Back in the early 1980s when wars were raging in Central America, refugees fled to the United States from death squads in their home countries, particularly Guatemala and El Salvador. The first church to respond to this crisis was Fife’s church, the Southside Presbyterian church in Tucson, Arizona. On March 24, 1982 he started the Sanctuary movement and initiated an “underground railroad “system to move refugees to other parts of the country and to Canada where they would be safe…