His father was picked up by the Border Patrol in a small town near Mt. Vernon, Wash. right after he was born in 1955.

Before the elder Ignacio Ibarra was taken away however, the father of three children had one request -- to be able to drop off his paycheck to his family. After all, who knew when their next one would be coming?

That father turned out to be a lucky man. The Border Patrol agent, who escorted him home, saw a yard full of U.S.-born children running around and realized what the loss of a parent and paycheck could do to this family.

Only after seeing the children did the agent allow the elder Ibarra to fill out resident alien cards, allowing him and his family to remain in the states. Both parents later achieved legal status and moved back to Phoenix, before accepting work in Wilcox, Ariz.

One might say that, with such a fortunate past, the younger Ignacio Ibarra was destined to cover border issues in southern Arizona. He certainly has an invested interest, if not a biased grounding in a controversial issue that is constantly evolving.

Ibarra's history with immigration and border issues, as well as his bias towards them, is not something he tries to hide even today. As he sat in front of the Borderbeat staff on Monday, Feb. 12 inside the Marshall Building at the University of Arizona, Ibarra confessed his opinions are influenced by his past.

"Objectivity is impossible," Ibarra said. "Every story, every fact is seen through the eyes you've grown up in. You can't be that objective, position-less creature every media seems to want you to be."

It was those eyes and that experience which led Ibarra to a position with the Arizona Daily Star over 15 years ago, starting in 1991. Until 2005, Ibarra covered the border for the Star until he accepted his current position as Metro Team Leader.

He's even become an expert on the border issues he lived and breathed since he was a baby. Ibarra has worked in the Southwest for his entire career, including writing for the Bisbee Observer and the Sierra Vista Herald, before penning for the Star.

"I think that's something special about the Star," Ibarra said. "I have the language, the culture and the experience working along the border and I've been thankful many times for that background."

To give the class a better understand of that background, Ibarra recalled countless stories from his past to demonstrate the ever-changing issues the southwest has been facing because of illegal immigration.

When he was younger, Ibarra said his family always had immigrants cutting through their yard on their way across the border.

"Growing up, my mom fed everyone that came across our yard and my dad would point out the nearest work places," Ibarra said. "However, in 1998, the groups were 30 people or more and suddenly a large group was approaching your home. The situations began to change."

Ibarra also said that in his experience, a lot of the migrants crossing through his backyard were simply coming across the border to work. However, what has changed over the years is the work they are coming for.

"Who are the migrants?" Ibarra asked. "When this migration originally started, they were the farm workers. In recent years, I've met more college students, more computer programmers, and more migrants with master's degrees. I seldom run into Mexican migrants who say they can't find work in Mexico; they can't find work that will allow them to survive."

Yet the numbers of migrants also began to overpower the border, according to Ibarra.

"The Border Patrol actually watched a group of 600 people gather up near Douglas (in 1996) and run across the border in mass in attempts to overwhelm the Border Patrol," Ibarra said. "So it doesn't take much to see larger groups like that to realize something significant is happening. Beginning in 1998, it really began to take over our coverage and has dominated it ever since."

Some of Ibarra's coverage included a special report done for the Star called "Lives on the Borderline," as well as "Marvin's Journey: One Migrant's Tale" from 2000.

He has been able to get such fascinating stories because of the willingness for immigrants to share their story, he said.

"When you run across the desert for three days, you want to tell someone," Ibarra said. "Those people carry their vision of the American dream across the lawns."

Yet Ibarra wanted the Borderbeat staff and other future journalists to know that without those years of encounters and a true understanding of what a complicated issue the border is, he would have been unable to do his job with the same passion.

"Your reporting is going to be enhanced by your knowledge of any subject matter," Ibarra said before he left. "I think it's a good rule of thumb to be grounded in the issue you are going to report on."

"If you want to work on the border, learn Spanish," Ibarra said as he looked into the eyes of the students around him. "If you want to understand what you are seeing, learn about the culture."

Or if you want to become a well-respected, genuinely passionate reporter like Ibarra himself -- you might just have to live it.