Doug Pagitt, Evangelical Pastor Who Biked 1,600 Miles Along U.S.-Mexico Border, Says the Only Border Crisis is America’s Disgusting Treatment of Migrants

Migrants break for rest while traveling in a caravan heading to Mexico City, in Arriaga near the border with Oaxaca state, Mexico November 7, 2021. REUTERS/Raquel Cunha

If you listen to certain politicians and pundits on certain network news shows, you are left with the impression that communities along the US-Mexico border are a hellscape of crime and violence fueled by malevolent immigrants crossing the border, deliberately trying to circumvent our legal immigration system. In this view, borderland communities are victims in need of saving.

But after spending five weeks biking more than 1,600 miles along the border with a group of faith leaders and activists, where I spoke with border patrol officers, ranchers, humanitarians, faith leaders, mayors, business owners, residents, migrants, and asylum seekers, I can say this picture of the situation at the border is far from the truth. There is a crisis at the border, but it is one that puts immigrants — not US citizens — in danger.

Border communities aren’t as dangerous as the media and politicians say

Throughout our journey, which aimed to create a better understanding of the US immigration system and the reality along the border, I asked the same question of everyone that our group met: “What do you know to be true based on living here that you wish people in the rest of the United States knew?”