North Of The Border, South Of The Wall

As the Trump administration evaluates bids to prototype a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, topography will present as big a challenge as political opposition.

- Lauren Etter

Corralling often wild land beneath miles of concrete isn’t easy, as can be seen in these photos taken of a 55-mile stretch of fence in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas between tiny Peñitas and Brownsville, the last major town before land gives way to the Gulf of Mexico.

The actual border is formed by the Rio Grande. No barrier can be built in the middle of the muddy green waters, and the banks of the river are a flood plain governed by international treaty. The fence that’s here, a product of the U.S.’s 2006 Secure Fence Act, is a porous collection of concrete and steel barriers set as far as 2 miles north of the actual border and punctuated by gaps to allow access for the thousands of private landowners whose acreage runs to the river’s edge.

Cordoned off from the rest of the U.S., these patches between the fence and the river have sprouted their own ecosystems. In border regions such as this one, which facilitate more than half a trillion dollars of trade every year, life must go on. Workers still harvest the crops, tourists still enjoy butterfly sanctuaries, and families still play with their children.