A journey along the entire 1,933-mile US-Mexico border shows the monumental task of securing it
Skye Gould/Andy Kiersz/Business Insider
From western California to eastern Texas, across four US states and 24 counties, the 1,933-mile US-Mexico border criss-crosses arid desert, rugged mountains, and winding rivers.
For 654 of those miles, fencing separates the two countries from each other.
The 7.3 million people who live in the border counties on each side of the line have watched for years as security grew tighter and illegal crossings tapered off.
In just the last 12 years, the US government built the barriers, deployed troops, and started using advanced surveillance technology - all in an effort to tame and control some of the wildest and remotest land in the United States.
Today, making good on campaign promises to "build that wall," President Donald Trump and his administration has cracked down even further, pushing for more fencing, a border wall, and thousands of National Guard troops stationed along the boundary line.
It's worth taking a look at the complexity of the borderlands to understand the daunting task of securing them.
From the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east, here's what the entire US-Mexico border looks like:
California has stood more defiantly than any other state against Trump's immigration agenda and his long-promised wall. Yet the Golden State's southern boundary is one of the most thoroughly fortified along the entire US-Mexico border.
Roughly 105 miles of the 140-mile border California shares with Mexico are walled off by pedestrian fencing or vehicle barriers, beginning on the west coast with a tall, metal fence that juts into the Pacific Ocean.
Though some Trump critics have seized upon his recent attempt to deploy the National Guard in California, the San Diego coastline already hosts around 55 guardsman who assist in "counterdrug missions" and conduct surveillance support.
Just a few yards inland from the coast, a large metal door is cut into the fencing that holds a special significance to the American and Mexican families who live near the border.
It's called the "Door of Hope," and it opens into California's Friendship Park. US officials used to work with Border Angels, a local nonprofit, to host door-opening events for families separated by the fence to greet and hug one another.
But Border Patrol announced this year the door will remain closed.
The closing of the "Door of Hope" was just the latest move in a years-long trend of permanently sealing up gaps along the California-Tijuana border. One of the most extreme examples is Smuggler's Gulch, pictured here in 2003.
More than one century, $60 million, and 2 million cubic yards of dirt later, this is what Smuggler's Gulch looks like now.
Just across the border from San Diego, in neighboring Tijuana, is where passersby can catch a glimpse of the early stages of Trump's long-promised border wall.
Eight prototypes were erected near the Otay Mesa point of entry, and recently underwent a bevy of tactical tests against climbers, diggers, and breaching equipment.
While much of California's southern border is secured by fencing or vehicle barriers, two main stretches of land have remained somewhat unscathed. One, the Otay Mountain Wilderness, includes a 3,500-foot mountain peak known for its steep climb and abundance of tarantulas.
The Jacumba Mountain Wilderness also occupies a large stretch of bare borderlands known for their brutal conditions for migrants. Though Border Patrol agents monitor the area on horseback, the area is vast and remote, and migrants often die before help arrives.
Unlike some of the more remote corners of the southern California border, the sister cities of Calexico and Mexicali are densely populated, inextricably linked, and happen to lie directly atop the US-Mexico border.
Like California, Arizona is also covered almost entirely by some form of manmade barrier.
For instance, San Luis, Arizona, is walled off from San Luis Rio Colorado in Mexico by heavily fortified barricades, including a triple-layered fence in certain parts.
Throughout much of the Sonoran Desert, which spans Arizona's southern border, the barriers consist solely of short fence posts that prevent vehicles from crossing, but that people can easily step over.
The small barriers intersect much of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Tohono O'Odham Nation Reservation, which are known for their extreme desert conditions and have seen growing numbers of migrant deaths in recent years.
Most of the corpses found in Arizona in 2018 so far were discovered near the Tohono O'Odham Nation Reservation.
Humane Borders manages dozens of water stations scattered across the state's southern border near Tucson, where dehydrated and often desperate migrants seek humanitarian aid, or even try to be rescued by Border Patrol agents.
Further to the east, rising up from Arizona's desert floor, is an archipelago of mountainous borderlands called the Sky Islands, which sustain thousands of different types of species that couldn't survive just miles away in the Sonoran Desert.
It's this part of Arizona that has the most to lose from the barrier construction that's been speeding up in recent years. Border walls don't just separate people — they separate plants and animals, too.
But just a few miles from the mountain range, border security has become a top issue for Arizona's ranchers, who own private land along the state's southern border. Though many dislike the idea of a massive border wall cutting through their properties, some have long been calling on the federal government to help them protect their land.
New Mexico has become a leading frontier in the Trump administration's efforts to secure the border. Though its 180-mile border is currently sealed mostly just by short vehicle barriers, construction is already underway on new replacement fencing.
The replacement wall, authorized by the Trump administration, doesn't quite match the stature or complexity of the eight border-wall prototypes built in California. But officials have insisted that the bollard-style wall was the same one Trump promised voters throughout his campaign.
Construction on the new wall is expected to take roughly 400 days and cost $73.3 million — all for just one 20-mile stretch of border territory.
New Mexico was also among the first to accept Trump's funding for a National Guard deployment to the border, and authorized a total of 250, though the state's Republican governor has since cut that number down to 150.
Texas is the state with by far the longest stretch of land bordering Mexico — yet 91% of its border has no man-made barrier at all.
Just 115 miles of the state's 1,241 miles are fenced. The city of El Paso lies along the longest stretch of fencing.
The length of the Texas' border travels along the Rio Grande River, creating a jagged, twisting natural barrier that creates logistical problems both for border-crossers and the US authorities that patrol the area.
The challenges and dangers inherent in patrolling the Texas border came to a head late last year after the death of Border Patrol agent Rogelio Martinez near Van Horn, Texas, some 30 miles inland.
One of the wildest areas of Texas, which holds some of the most treasured conservation areas on the continent, is Big Bend National Park, which lies in the jagged U-bend in the middle of the Texas-Mexico border.
The park contains river, mountain, and desert ecosystems that sustain fragile populations of black bears and other large mammals, which are slowly recovering from an over-hunting epidemic that began back in the 1950s.
Tourists who come for the scenery in Big Bend often also pay a visit to Boquillas Del Carmen, a tiny Mexican village that lies across the Rio Grande and is accessible only by boat.
Southeastern Texas is one of the Trump administration's highest priorities along the entire US-Mexico border.
Some Texans have been waiting so long for the government to secure the border, they've taken matters into their own hands. Throughout Texas, as well as the other border states, armed civilians have formed volunteer groups to patrol the borderlands and either detain or report suspected illegal border-crossers to Border Patrol.
Though Border Patrol agents are always nearby — there's even a checkpoint near the group in Falfurrias — the group says they're able to assist the agents by spotting potential migrants and smugglers as they make their way through private property.
As the Trump administration continues to demand that Congress fund the border wall, areas such as the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park are growing increasingly concerned about the effects a large concrete barrier would have on their landscapes.
But the neighboring Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge has managed to escape the same fate — in a $1.6 trillion spending package Congress approved earlier this year, the lawmakers explicitly said Santa Ana would be exempt from any new border-wall construction.
Perhaps the most notorious segment of the entire US-Mexico border is the Rio Grande Valley, which in recent years has become a hotspot for migrants and drug smugglers. National Guard troops deployed there at Trump's request.
An ongoing problem with any border barriers are weak spots — even in the fenced-off parts of the Texas border, the barriers are dotted with major gaps that undermine the entire structure.
Perhaps the best example of the economic impact of border barriers can be seen at the Fort Brown Memorial Golf Course near Brownsville, Texas, which sits in what is essentially a border dead-zone, caught between Mexico and the US.
Putting a border wall on every one of the 1,279 unfenced miles of the 1,933-mile border is easier said than done.
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