When my son Jack returned home several weeks ago from a trip to El Paso, Texas, there was no denying he seemed like a different young man. He and about a dozen other AP Spanish students from Central Catholic High School made the trip with the school principal, Brother Tony Baginski, to see what the struggle at the border was really like, both for the agents in charge of securing it and for the men, women and children willing to do anything at all to get across it.
"I think you should talk to this man," Jack told me as he handed me a business card. It read 'Agent Mario Escalante, US Border Patrol, El Paso Sector.'
"He spent more than an hour with us, Mom. What he told us was really eye-opening."
So I reached out to Agent Escalante. For the better part of a month, he and I have exchanged emails and ideas. Today, I finally enjoyed his company during a live interview. Does Pittsburgh care about a situation happening 1,800 miles away? Yes. Or, should I say, at least we should.
Hearing about the work US Border Patrol agents must manage across 1,254 miles of Texas-Mexico border is a lot different from the story we hear on the news. Because it is different. The hardest part of Agent Escalante's twenty years with the border patrol? The human side. Encountering families that have sacrificed everything for a better life. He and his wife, who's also a border agent, have a teenage son. They understand the struggles of the people who want desperately to come into America. But their job is upholding the law.
Watch our live Facebook Video of my interview with Agent Escalante here.