Photographed & Produced by Samantha Sais/Beyond the Border for Tucson Weekly

Samantha Sais, UA School of Journalism student and Beyond the Border photographer, talks about her experience photographing two prominent figures in the immigration debate.

First, she meets and photographs Glenn Spencer, the president of a citizen border patrol organization based out of Hereford. Spencer, who lives adjacent to the border fence, patrols and monitors activity on the border using high-tech equipment.

On the other side of the border, Sais photographs Padre Prisciliano Peraza Garcia, director of the Centro Comunitario de atención al Migrante y Necesitado in Altar, Sonora.

Garcia takes Sais along with a reporter and two translators across the city to visit a shelter for crossers waiting for their coyotes, and the checkpoint that leads into Sasabe.

For more Beyond the Border stories, see this week's issue of the Weekly.