Special project: Immigration manipulation
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Tim Steller
Columnist
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This is an investigative project by Arizona Daily Star metro columnist Tim Steller about how government actors in the U.S. and other countries try to mold public opinion on immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border. It is funded by a fellowship from the Society of Professional Journalists Foundation. The Star is publishing these investigative columns periodically in 2020.
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Armed groups have forced thousands of people from their homes in Guerrero and neighboring states, many heading to the U.S. border, but the Mexican government that acted so dramatically against foreign migration has done little to help its own refugees.
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While some whole villages have fled from armed groups, another, less noticed migration is taking place one family at a time
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On Mexico trip, columnist Tim Steller attends Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador's press conference, finds a secret to getting called to ask a question.
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Steller's take: The border is Douglas, Arizona's main economic advantage, but it becomes a disadvantage when America's loudest voice, and even the local sheriff, proclaim it dangerous.
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The president and allies hyped the threat posed by infected people crossing the border illegally, saying the border wall would stop them. The real threat was from normal social interactions that continued in the absence of a coordinated, border-wide public-health response.
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U.S. prosecutors accuse Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez of involvement in cocaine trafficking, and some migrants say his policies drove them from the country. But Hernandez has kept President Trump and his administration happy by catering to their interests.
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Many Hondurans who fled to the United States in 2018-2019 blame Pres. Juan Orlando Hernandez's government, but Santos Yovany Membreño is a loyal supporter. He worked for a program that intended in part to prevent migration. It led him to seek asylum.
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They were just enforcing the law, not deliberately taking kids from their parents, administration officials claimed. That and other lies justified the policy that caused a scandal in early 2018. The policy seemed to have died, but family separation lives on.
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Trump pumped up the threat of foreign criminals to win the GOP primary and presidency in 2016. That rhetoric gave him the power to slash legal immigration and impose harsh border-security measures.
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Trump's border wall began as a marketing idea by an adviser who had never been to the U.S.-Mexico line. When people cheered, the words turned into a promise to Trump's supporters and, finally, a physical reality across Arizona's wild lands.
10 updates to this series since Updated
Tim Steller
Columnist
As featured on
Gov. Doug Ducey has avidly promoted the idea that Arizona is experiencing an unprecedented border crisis. We're not. He's among a group of politicians promoting a sense of crisis for political gain.
Protests have nearly brought Arizona's placement of shipping containers on the border in Cochise County to a standstill.
Tim Steller's column: 'Containerland' border wall only serves political purposeFor Star subscribers: The nearly 1,000 containers Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has installed along the Cochise County-Mexico border won't stop people from crossing, but the $95 million project has a point.
