A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent stationed outside a break in the fence on private farmland in Peñitas. Only some of these gaps, which occur about every quarter mile, are regularly manned.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent stationed outside a break in the fence on private farmland in Peñitas. Only some of these gaps, which occur about every quarter mile, are regularly manned.

Photographer: Kirsten Luce for Bloomberg Businessweek

The Border Wall Is Already Giving Up Part of America

What life is like in the no-man’s land 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. 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.

Whether and how to seal the U.S. southern border with Mexico has dogged government officials for almost three decades. As early as the Clinton years, officials recommended a physical structure along with increased enforcement amid public anxiety over drug trafficking and a flood of illegal immigration following Nafta. The 2006 Secure Fence Act called for nearly 700 miles of fence along the 1,954-mile border from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.