Caitlin Dickerson’s article in The Atlantic offers a poignant account of the journey that thousands of migrants have undertaken over the years for a chance to reach the American El Dorado. These horrific and painful experiences not only speak to the desperation that drove these refugees to leave their homelands, but they also highlight the courage and dedication of people fleeing persecution, violence, and extreme poverty in their countries. I was reminded me of a conference I attended last year on the experiences of migrants traveling through Central America. We heard from an anthropologist who had joined a group of migrants through the Darién Gap to try to understand the significance of what they brought with them and what they left behind. The researcher explained that, although she was with the migrants on this journey, she was constantly aware of her distance and, frankly, her privilege. The mere access to a U.S. passport set her apart from the racialized and politically vulnerable group she found themselves with, even though they had embarked on the same journey.

Reading Dickerson’s article, I couldn’t help but think about the ethical considerations of reporting such experiences as a journalist for whom non-intervention is a core principle. Being a spectator to such violence while being aware of one’s own privilege can raise important ethical considerations. Then comes the process of publishing reports, speaking at conferences as a paid expert on the suffering of others, or trying to make sense of it, in the case of academics. Indeed, these considerations are not unique to journalists. Yet I believe these questions are extremely important to grapple with for people interested in telling refugee stories, which can be incredibly violent, intimate, traumatic, and incredibly personal. At the same time, these stories play an important role in our political discourse. They give a name and a face to the people we talk about and make policies about, forcing us to confront the reality of their humanity. Overall, have these stories made us more empathetic to the suffering of others, or have they simply fueled our perverse desire to uncover stories that move us? These are difficult questions to answer, but they are important because when we engage with them critically, we become better researchers, better journalists, and better storytellers.

I really enjoyed discovering the tension between deterrence and more conciliatory approaches to migration governance in Aikins’s description of Jonathan Blitzer’s book. Filkins, on the other hand, does a fantastic job of analyzing the politicization of migration governance in the United States and how it has exacerbated failures that are mainly systemic in nature. Both pieces highlight the experiences of people on both sides of the migration issue and the political spectrum, to show how tone-deaf policies designed in Washington DC policy offices affect the realities of migrants and border protection agents. Both articles complement Dickerson’s piece very well. While Dickerson highlights how these policies affect displaced migrants by putting arbitrary and dangerous barriers in the way of displaced people trying to find a better life, Filkins and Aikins delve into the intricacies of the immigration system and the many ways it fails everyone—not just migrants. These stories show us how the system has been overwhelmed and how the politicization of migration has made it even more difficult to find a truly effective solution to what is above all a logistical problem and a human rights nightmare.

While these pieces show how complex the immigration system of the United States has grown over the years, I have also found myself feeling slightly more optimistic about one day finding solutions to the so-called “migratory crises”. As illustrated in Blitzer’s book, “the American immigration system is a victim of its own dysfunction” (Aikins). If only we allow ourselves to leave behind the politics and approach this challenge as a logistical one, we can begin to alleviate the pressures on the border through policies that achieve effective resource building and allocation and create straightforward pathways for legal migration into the United States.