Legally, about 350 million people cross the border every year. That’s more than the entire population of the United States. It’s like everyone in the country decided to go to Tijuana for a weekend taco binge, came back, and did it all over again.
MexicoUS Border: A Deep Dive
Of course, that’s through the official ports of entry—the 48 checkpoints where you wait in line for two hours to watch a border agent sniff your car’s air freshener. Those lines are so long, they have their own gravitational pull.
But the other crossings? That’s an entirely different zoo. The total number of border apprehensions varies wildly, but the record for a single year was about 1.6 million. That’s a lot of people walking through a lot of very hot, very dusty places. It’s like the world’s least fun marathon, with the prize being a semitruck ride to a new life.
What Lives Along the Border?
You might think the border is just a barren, empty wasteland. Wrong again, city slicker. It’s teeming with life. There are jaguars—actual, full-grown jaguars—that wander back and forth. There are Mexican gray wolves, rattle snakes, and the legendary chupacabra (which is apparently just a mangy coyote with a skin condition, but let's not ruin the myth).
There are also vigilantes with binoculars and people selling homemade tamales from the trunk of a car near the border fence. It’s a weird, weird ecosystem.
And don't forget the tunnels. Over 200 of them have been found, some with electricity, ventilation, and even rail tracks. It’s like a mole people’s subway system, used for drugs and, occasionally, a very ambitious burrito delivery. The longest one was over a mile long, connecting a house in Tijuana to a warehouse in San Diego. The engineering is frankly impressive, even if the purpose is illegal.
Building trumps wall
