Border Crossing

Eric Reidy (@Eric_Reidy) is a journalist and the migration editor-at-large for The New Humanitarian. He has reported extensively on migration in the Mediterranean as well as on humanitarian aid work andvigilante groups at the US-Mexico border.

In addition to the New Humanitarian, he has written for Wired Magazine, the New Republic, the Nation, Mother Jones, and the MIT Technology Review, among other outlets. He is the author of the award winning Ghost Boat – an investigative series about the disappearance of 243 refugees in the Mediterranean Sea.

I’ve wanted to have Eric on the podcast for a while to talk about both the issues he covers, and also how he covers them. His style of journalism is one you don’t see very often – long-form, character-driven, and usually based on weeks or even months of investigative field work in tough places.

In this episode, we talk about the worsening humanitarian situation at the US-Mexico border, Eric’s previous work on migration to the EU, what people get wrong about refugees, and why there are no easy answers to policy questions about migration.

Recommendations:

Beyond the Sand and Seaby Ty McCormick

The Ungrateful Refugee, by Dina Nayeri