NPR Borderland
An NPR News team including Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep will drive both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border in March. They plan to travel east to west, starting at the Brownsville, Texas/Matamoros, Mexico border and making their way to Tijuana, crossing the border several times.
Every story will involve a crossing -- of people, goods, money or culture -- from one side of the border to the other. They explore the often surprising ways two neighboring nations influence one another.
Opportunity Crossing I
Morning Edition; Monday, March 24
We look out from a mountain over El Paso and Juarez, two big cities stitched together. But it makes a huge difference which side of the border you're on. We visit the Troncoso family, whose lives completely changed when they crossed a quarter mile into the U.S. many years ago, and moved into a modest improvised home in a colonia, or informal neighborhood, by the Rio Grande. Two of their sons became a Yale professor and novelist, and a high school principal.
The City at the Crossing
Morning Edition; Monday, March 24
Juarez, terrifyingly violent a few years ago, is quieter now. We attend a concert there with Intocable, a sign of the city's recovery. Crime has not stopped, it's just become quieter; we interview a man who describes how his business has paid years of the cuota, or toll -- weekly extortion payments to stay in business. Juarez continues to make much of what the U.S. buys. We ride home at the end of a long work week with Yvonne, a single mother who makes refrigerator components in a maquiladora for $43 a week.
Opportunity Crossing II
Morning Edition; Tuesday, March 25
The Troncoso family story leads us now to Anthony High School, in the farthest west point of Texas, where Oscar Troncoso is the principal. An undocumented kid raises the American flag in the morning as we arrive. Then five kids, mostly from poor families, some with legal status and some not, describe their uncertain futures.
Barrio Aztecas
Morning Edition; Tuesday, March 25
El Paso is the safest city in the U.S. -- but it is also the home and base of a brutal gang that commits its crimes across the border in Juarez, including the 2010 killing of two Americans; the suspects were just convicted. Monica Ortiz Uribe of Fronteras profiles her hometown gang, visiting an El Paso pool hall frequented by the gang members, and then going to prison to meet a mass killer from the gang who was her classmate in junior high school.
The Two Raids at the Crossing
Morning Edition; Wednesday, March 26
The border town of Columbus, New Mexico was attacked by Mexico's Pancho Villa in 1916. But lately residents talk of "the second raid," when Federal authorities arrested the mayor and almost the whole police force for trafficking guns to Mexico. We attend the inauguration of the replacement mayor, discuss his hopes for the town. He's a businessman and a school bus driver. He drives kids to the border who are U.S. citizens, live in Mexico, but attend school in Columbus. Across the border, we meet the mother of four such kids, now in Mexico because their dad was caught by immigration authorities and forced to leave the U.S.
Trade at the Crossing
Morning Edition; Wednesday, March 26
Arizona passed a famous anti-immigration law, but many Arizona officials want to improve trade with Mexico. NPR's Ted Robbins interviews the mayors of Tucson and Phoenix who are leading the effort.
Weapons Crossing
All Things Considered; Wednesday, March 26
In the aftermath of the Fast and Furious scandal, the ATF continues trying to stop the trade in guns -- legal to buy in the U.S., illegal to transport to Mexico. NPR's Ted Robbins talks with law enforcement officials struggling to stop a massive trade.
The Danger of the Crossing
Morning Edition; Thursday, March 27
What's it like to cross the Arizona desert illegally? We interview a woman who became lost in the desert and finally grew so desperate that after three days she set the brush on fire to attract the Border Patrol. We also ride with a tribal cop on the Tohono O'odham reservation, who has drawn the task of collecting countless bodies from this stark landscape.
Crossing Back
Morning Edition; Thursday, March 27
Mexicali, Mexico is a major dumping ground for deportees from the U.S. It's always been a city of migrants -- Chinese who dug canals across the border for the Imperial Valley, and Mexicans who came to work in the Imperial Valley fields. Now it is a home for involuntary migrants from across the U.S. NPR's Kelly McEvers spends time with them.
Entreprenuership Crossing
Morning Edition; Friday, March 28
We travel with NPR's Carrie Kahn, a longtime Tijuana-phile, to a neighborhood she says is classic Tijuana. On a single block there's a shack with a corrugated metal roof; a shabby building filled with the crowing of cocks raised for cockfighting; and a brand-new building filled with creative teams that work for U.S. tech firms. It emerges that Tijuana is going after high-tech manufacturing, seeking to compete with cities like Bangalore and arguing that Mexico is infinitely more convenient to Silicon Valley.
The Final Crossing
Morning Edition; Friday, March 28
We look at the quirky city of Tijuana -- its seedy reputation, its entertainment district, the local artist who built a 50-some-foot statue of a naked woman in an informal neighborhood. Tijuana is all about crossing; there was no city until L.A. grew across the border. We meet an ex-mayor who's an architect and is in the early stages of designing a medical care for the express purpose of caring for American patients who cross over for cheaper and, it is said, friendlier medical care. The ex-mayor has deliberately sent his kids to school in the U.S. while living in Mexico; they are border citizens, he wants them to be comfortable in both countries. We conclude our series on the beach, where the border wall extends into the sea, though pastors hold a joint Sunday services on both sides of the wire.
The central stories air on Morning Edition beginning Wednesday, March 19, through Friday, March 28 on 88.9/89.1.