Howard G. Buffett - Our 50-State Border Crisis

Howard G. Buffett is one of the most brilliant, outside-the-box thought leaders Ive ever met. His ideas often challenge the status quo and force people out of their comfort zones. His foundation specializes in helping vulnerable people in some of the most dangerous and difficult situations on Earth, and he lives by a hard-and-fast rule: You must take risks and not be afraid to fail, because the same stale thinking and ideas will get you nowhere.

As a member of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee and former attorney general of North Dakota, I have considered U.S. border security and the consequences of smuggling illegal narcotics, people, weapons, and other contraband into and out of our country priorities for some time. Unfortunately, this important topic has been burdened with half-truths, false facts, and partisan bickering. In Our 50-State Border Crisis Howard courageously takes on an issue that challenges our sense of what it means to be an American. We are at once a nation built on the rule of law, and yet we embrace a longstanding moral obligation to help those in need. We are a nation of immigrants, but to be a nation we must protect our borders from the truly evil cartel forces that cross them every day.

All writers have biases. Howards bias is for facts. Howard paints a high-definition picture of the border that he has lived as a ranch owner, a law enforcement officer, a humanitarian, and a photographer. The book starts from one very basic set of facts: The U.S. border with Mexico is not secure. And yet at the same time we have refugees and economic migrants arriving at our border whose challenges and needs we must address. His stories of his experiences and travels in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, and of his interactions with migrants, violent gang members, ranchers, law enforcement, and leaders struggling to help their countries recover from years of conflict, are vivid and powerful.

I first met Howard several years ago when a friend suggested I talk to him before I traveled to Africa, where our congressional delegation was attending briefings on food security. I was promised a lively and interesting conversation on soil and water conservation. Given the topics, I thought, Maybe. Well, within fifteen minutes on the phone I knew Howard was the real deal. He is an expert on the fragility of soils and water issues, and I learned how his foundation was investing in a farm in Arizona to try new soil and water conservation techniques that could be used in Africa.

In the same call, I explained to Howard that I was focusing on the challenges in Central America and Mexico and the resulting border security issues. Through my platform on the Homeland Security Committee, I felt that I had some ability to influence our policy toward those regions. Howard invited me to Arizona to see the soil and water conservation work, but also to see the effort he was making to understand and develop data about border security. The price of my admission to his farm and ranch was that I could not bring any staff, and I had to read his 2013 book 40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World.

Youre on, I said. I read 40 Chances, not because I thought I would find enlightenment, rather because I said I would. Instead, I found I could not put it down. Books about foundations work so often involve fluffy tales of success, hope, and happiness. In 40 Chances, I found honest autopsies of failures as Howard has tried to solve hunger crises all over the world: an example about how an intervention may have caused more problems than it solved or how a huge investment had only limited impact. The book showed how money and good intentions dont make complicated situations and issues any less so. The lesson is: You dont abandon the effort, but you must approach solving these problems with honesty.