US-Mexico border: new tourist attraction?

Why is 海角大神 Science in our name?

Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The 海角大神 Science Church, and we鈥檝e always been transparent about that.

The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we鈥檝e aimed 鈥渢o injure no man, but to bless all mankind,鈥� as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.

Here, you鈥檒l find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences 鈥� a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.

Explore values journalism About us

Latin America Monitor

US-Mexico border: new tourist attraction?

With news of drug violence along the US-Mexico border, most Americans are avoiding it. But one tour beckons, promising an apolitical view that gets past the usual rhetoric.

Mamta Popat/AP

Bob Feinman, far right, of Humane Borders, discusses US-Mexico border security to a group of people while standing in front of a portion of the wall in Nogales, Ariz. Feinman led the group on a bus tour called 'Border Crisis: Fact and Fiction.' Billed as an 'apolitical' tour that will give people a chance to see for themselves the truth about living on the border.

By Lourdes Medrano Correspondent

June 21, 2011, 10:47 a.m. ET | Tucson, Ariz.

The US-Mexico border: scary place or misunderstood region?

Now you can find out for yourself. A new Arizona bus tour promises to shed light on what life is really like along a stretch of the 2,000-mile international boundary, a flashpoint for heated debate over illegal immigration and national security.

鈥淏order Crisis: Fact and Fiction鈥� introduces tour-goers to ranchers, business owners, and others who live and work on both sides of the border.

鈥淭ake your own fact-finding mission on the US-Mexico border,鈥� a Gray Line Tours advertises. 鈥淒on鈥檛 let the politicians and news broadcasters become your only source of information.鈥�

The $75 tours, touted as apolitical, aim to get past the rhetoric that revolves around the border by offering twice-a-month trips to Nogales, Ariz., about 60 miles south of Tucson. The tours include a look at the state's busiest port of entry, the border wall, and a water tank placed a few miles away to aid migrants making the illegal trek north through the desert.

鈥淪o many people with so many agendas want the average person to believe the border is a certain way,鈥� tour guide Bob Feinman says. 鈥淪ometimes it鈥檚 a good thing, sometimes it鈥檚 a bad thing. And it鈥檚 a pretty controversial thing all the time.鈥�

The daylong trip gives people an opportunity to gain enough of an understanding about the border to shape their own views, he says.

Nogales is a high desert town of about 20,000 that lies in the Border Patrol鈥檚 260-mile Tucson sector, the most guarded along the Southwest border. The town also is hub for cross-border commerce.

Tour organizers, which include Humane Borders and the Santa Cruz Community Foundation, eventually plan to extend the daylong excursions south of the border into Nogales, Sonora, Mr. Feinman says.

The short trip is ideal for those who want to satisfy their curiosity about the much-discussed border region, says Bob Phillips, the foundation鈥檚 executive director.

He hopes people who take the tour walk away with a picture in their minds that more closely resembles reality. 鈥淲e certainly think that鈥檚 a good thing,鈥� Mr. Phillips says.