Earlier this decade, near the U.S.-Mexico border south of Tucson, Ariz., journalist and UVSC professor Scott Carrier and photographer Julin Cardona saw a group of 27 Mexicans, including two infants, embark for an unfamiliar city -- Chicago.

Four days later on the American side of the border, Carrier asked to see a border agent's log for the previous 48 hours. The agent had found nine men digging in the sand, near death. The nine men hadn't seen the women or children in two days, and Carrier doesn't know what happened to them.

Cardona, a photojournalist from Jurez, Mexico, spoke at Utah Valley State College on Tuesday. He showed photographs from 10 years of documenting events on the border. After two videos and two photo slide shows of factory workers, pallet houses and search parties, Cardona didn't advocate any specific policy options for the United States. He said the issues of illegal immigration, illegal drug trafficking and the failing Mexican economy are interconnected and difficult. The culture of poverty, death and fear cannot be easily repaired.

"There is not a single button. It's not very easy to fix this," Cardona said.

Cardona is working on a soon-to-be released book about immigrants called "Exodus."

"I live in Jurez, Mexico, almost on the middle of the U.S.-Mexican border," Cardona said. "I think it is the biggest and most desperate border in the world."

He said globalization has had several effects on his hometown, most of the them bad. He was at UVSC to show students the effects of the global economy, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the drug trade.

UVSC sophomore Geraldine Palacios went to the speech to learn what the border is like. She was surprised to see the magnitude of it all.

"I was overwhelmed with all the information," Palacios said. "I had heard stories about it."

• Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at blusk@heraldextra.com.