Sunday Feature: Travelling The Great Divide - The New Us-Mexico Border

Claudine LoMonaco, border correspondent for Arizona Public Radio, takes a trip along the US - Mexico border to examine how life and culture is changing as America constructs fortified walls to prevent illegal infiltration. She describes how the famous twinned border towns of El Paso/Ciudad Juarez, Nogales Arizona/Nogales Sonora, San Diego/Tijuana have been changed by the militarisation of the border. She travels with the border patrol in search of the traditional desert crossings. The programme observes the wall in its fully fortified might as it divides the cities of Tijuana and San Diego, and finds it again in the middle of an Indian Reservation cutting the traditional desert tribal lands in half. What role has this border played in the American imagination and how does it play out in the cultures on both sides? Claudine judges how well the new wall has worked in keeping check on the drug traffic and she reports on how this multi-million dollar divide has changed the habits and fortunes of the illegal migrants. Why do so many continue to die in agony and desperation in the American wilderness?