Free Republic

The BBC's The World programme, Tijuana, Mexico An intense debate is under way in the United States over what to do about illegal immigration. The Senate is soon to take up the issue, studying a controversial bill that would see the construction of 1,130km (700 miles) of fencing along parts of the border with Mexico. People along the western edge of the border, south of San Diego, have been living with a barrier for the past 16 years. Franc Contreras travelled there to ask people on both sides what the divide means to them. More barriers like this one could...

MEXICO CITY - ''The wall'' does not yet exist, and it might never be built, but already its 700 miles of fencing and electric sensors loom like a new Berlin Wall in the Latin American imagination. The proposed barrier along the Mexican border was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in December and is scheduled to be debated by the Senate next month. In Spanish, they call it el muro. El muro has been a focus of news for weeks not only in countries such as Mexico and El Salvador that are increasingly dependent on the dollars migrants send...