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Published on 18 Feb 2017
US-Mexico
border wall: The great wall of America A border of more than 3,000
kilometres separates the US from Mexico - but it is defined not only by
physical barriers made of concrete and steel but by an immigration
policy which is failing to address the issues behind illegal migration.
Despite the US spending billions of dollars on border enforcement, the
lure of work sees illegal migrants enter the country at a rate of
850,000 a year. A series of walls along the Mexican border were designed
to stem this flow but based on current estimates it has failed.
Instead, the walls have re-routed human traffic into remote desert areas
where people risk their lives in deadly conditions attempting to enter
the US. This film shows what US immigration policy looks like on the
ground for the people making the perilous journey for a better life, and
for the Americans who call this borderland home. Update: Since this
film first aired on Al Jazeera English in 2007, the US continued to
increase spending on border security. At no other time in history has
there been as many border patrol officers on duty as there are today.
And now the authorities are bracing for a new challenge: children. Since
2014, the number of families and unaccompanied children apprehended at
the border keeps skyrocketing. Young people are filling family detention
centres near the border, having fled poverty or extreme violence in
Central America. And today the issue is taking centre stage in this US
presidential election, with Donald Trump calling for more walls, leading
some migrants to say they will cross the border now before it may be
too late.
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