well stay with us coming up next on al-jazeera walls of shame and i'll see you tomorrow with more by thanks for watching the latest news as it breaks the last time senegal qualified for the world cup in two thousand to fifteen years and hope to do even better in russia next year with detailed coverage try to imagine it only seven years ago people were living right here. now that she has taken over their land from around the world donald trump is promising a major policy announcement on trade a potential challenge to khorat a missed opportunity abroad. this is the u.s. mexican border a harsh landscape that's become the focus of bitter debate between the two countries. yes. ok well bill the long but always get paid. the

right got it right for. the film we're about to show you first in two thousand and seven it questions a policy that's become even more contentious today. the sonoran desert in the south of the united states a harsh hot and i'm forgiving landscape straddling the border with mexico a natural barrier not so much a protective wall but a regional belt dividing the bodies of two nations. thousands of illegal migrants cross into this area of arizona every year to them it represents a gateway to a better life. in reality it's often a cold glitter of death from which they may never return. crossing the desert to avoid these. steel and concrete pools which mark the border in areas

that were on a main road like this would look for people. anybody out here they could be standing on the side of the road if they had made it this far need help. little. volunteer catherine ferguson and physician norma price all samaritans. rescuing those who are in desperate need of help illegal she'd been physically and mentally defeated by the deadly conditions people walk not only trails but they walk in circles because they're lost so you could have a child walking out here you could have a man a grandmother or you could have a group of people and all i'm doing is looking for anything that looks like a human being. but katherine and norma aren't the only ones on the lookout. and then. tell first to groups to help us the united states government has.

as many border patrol and border patrol backup as there are stars in the sky. in an attempt to secure its borders the current administration is spending billions of dollars on enforcement money many argue is doing little to stop the human traffic merely rebooting it since they've closed the ports it forces people out into the secure. desert and people are dying so. it is supposed to send a message back to the villages and mexico that if you come here you'll die out of the desert it's a policy of death. and they really don't know what they're facing i mean they don't know how hot and dry it is most of them if they haven't been here before they don't know about the desert and mostly women in high heel shoes are wedge issues and they all have one bob. water and this environment that is so hot and dry and

death or life. they need if they have any degree of. illness they need to be in tech my hospital me and the heat literally just close the door rang the heart the kidney will see a lot of pregnant women and that also. increases the risk that they'll get into trouble. the worst saddest of all courses the children and we see a situation where children. bob for those making the passage it's a terrible choice a gamble really face death and avoid capture or seek help even if that means deportation order. head in the distance emerging from the scrub stands a solitary figure. his decision has been made paying with his life is too high a price for passage to the promised land.

but does this in europe. so most. frightened disorientated and exhausted his story is like so many of those left behind when he couldn't keep up with the group. at the specialist one of the toughest. thing. to get out of. the. what could be an iraqi. face and what if. you want us to. think. ok. but all. with. me that.

i found myself a white boy and. opening up for what i had committed you know we all need to work a little bit more chief and. just been you know they want to thank you for you before you. went. through with with. me are you thinking. the samaritans presenting him with his options but his face betrays the. p.s.u.

since he. played the fed up. to a c. us nor means the samaritans can do nothing but call border patrol placing an illegal in their own car would mean a possible jail sentence anybody that gives them a ride would be arrested if they're caught we can't do that they could spend five years in prison for transporting. and ten years for conspiring against the united states government. with little time to collect his thoughts and belongings he's arrested by the border patrol. this is the first time blew up the. stand back and really it's got. i i apologize for america they're really nice. americans here those guys

were nice. but if the authorities appear to be taking a hard line there's a reason for their lack of hospitality the truth is many who attempt to cross illegally will do so again and again until they succeed. means zero tolerance. your. life. for all. those you know well ok. they have a warrant oh my goodness these are human beings we're dealing with intelligent feelings since you know beans and we can't give them socks or water there's something very wrong with that. we have a schizo frank sign at the border where this big sign that says keep out and at the same time metaphorically we have the sign that says help wanted we have there's a tremendous number of jobs we have significant sectors of the economy that need

large numbers of low skilled workers that we're not producing in the native born population and there are no legal channels for those workers to command and therefore the only way those workers can enter in large numbers it's illegally. judas is an academic and an immigration expert she knows the statistics speak for themselves since two thousand people have been entering at the rate of about eight hundred fifty thousand a year there are currently an estimated twelve million people in the country illegally and that's a huge number but the other thing is happening is that immigrants are going to what we call nontraditional states communities all over the country are suddenly waking up to find large foreign born populations in their midst and their schools i mean it seemed like it happened overnight in felicitous and wait a minute what's going on and there's a feeling that the system's out of control which in fact it so i mean there are serious problems with their. gratian system. a series of fences

dotted along the three thousand kilometer border between the united states and mexico were designed to stem the flow of illegal movement in urban areas based on current estimates the system is a failure. the walls have not been an effective deterrent they've changed their way and the costs and getting at the time of the fence was put up in california the assumption was that the desert was too difficult environment in the desert itself would be an effective wall and people would come in through the desert that has turned out to be fast people have come into the desert and now a lot of people are back trying to cross. despite this the walls will continue to go up with president bush signing off on the secure fence act in two thousand and six approving the construction of a war stretching one thousand kilometers on the other side of the fence the lure of

the american dollar appeals to both citizens and the mexican government alike mexico benefits tremendously by having its workers here. remittances money being sent home by mexican citizens working in the united states to their families in mexico is the second largest source of foreign currency in mexico but lessens the social pressure within the country so mexico in a real way doesn't have a huge incentive to stop this. over door all she can see is a separation barrier which has divided her family. but i. don't want bookkeepers. i'm on the other. hand they're not but without legal status one cannot move between the two countries

so for the past fourteen years he hasn't seen his family in mexico. you know that. it's a sacrifice millions have been willing to make and many more seem certain to follow . through with. mexico a country of more than one hundred million people but where more than forty percent live below the poverty line for so many the poverty line here a border with the united states. on the other side stands opportunity employment and dreams of earning

a high old way. but standing in their way a group such as the. this is american border patrol u.s. citizens doing their bit to keep illegals. the organization is led by glenn spencer his arizona ranch sits directly border thanks to glenn anyone can patrol it via the internet. this is one of american border patrols remotely operated border cams this camera is wireless and operated by solar power. so really you could run this camera from your home in new york to watch the border so that we can have thousands of americans

watching the border was real vigilance twenty four hours a day seven days a week. glenn says the u.s. government secure border initiative is a disastrous failure and he's compiled hours of video footage to prove it this is the most highly policed area in the country right and we could walk through even in daylight right with a huge atomic bomb on our back. and they would know it they could stop it if they wanted to but they don't want to i will bet you there are at least sixty illegal aliens holed up moving through the river in the washington's right now you have to understand this goes on four. hundred miles of the united states border. all along here now people say well i don't see anybody well they

don't want to be seen and to make sure they are being seen american border patrol is spending millions of donated dollars on surveillance equipment this is our border hawk you avi stands for unmanned aerial vehicle and basically it's not a lot different than a remote control airplane except this has a computer inside of it if i was by a cell. and underneath it down here this is our little pan and tilt system here this is one we designed it had built for us and this allows us to look around three sixty and i interrogate a target as it would be called where you can look at some and stay on it as the planes moving a former military man mike king knows how to catch the enemy so when the federal aviation authorities stopped him flying on mind aircraft he simply changed tactics plan b. was to buy real airplanes and so we did we purchased a cessna two to a six and we get a lot of video that way it's been

a extremely effective tool for us to gather intelligence on what's happening on the border what you train your eye to see in the bush is you start picking out pretty easily as you fly along or specialists outside as they're staging. there are aspiring illegal aliens at that point there is a lot of it you don't see it because they don't want to be seen but they're everywhere and we first got a thermal camera put on the house and i turned in i swung into the south just looking into mexico there are people down there and the next day there are people down there and the next day there are people down there and that every night i was catching groups of twenty thirty walking just west of the property here for like three weeks straight for in three weeks i caught like five hundred people i don't pretend like i'm not involved you know my my conscience will allow me i see it happening you know getting into my country today and i call the border patrol so what them deal with that we don't go out and tackle anybody. this all may seem

a little excessive obsessive or even slightly odd but considering that more than three billion u.s. dollars is being spent on border security glenn showed al-jazeera exactly when that money isn't going project now the. international border between the united states and mexico i'm now going. step into mexico. and here we are. self of the border down mexico way this is the first line of defense for the united states against an invasion from the rest of the world it may stop some but not many come much money we're spending our defending the borders of iraq. and our borders are wide open. and the government knows it wide open to drugs

terrorists and we've proven there and they know it. but there were being sacrificed on the altar of globalism and longer believe in the nation state they want to merge mexico the united states and canada together and if a few thousand people are sacrificed in the process as just press. for many who have tried to cross and failed they arrest receive medical treatment for cuts and blisters and then get ready to do it all again and here in nogales in mexico people smuggling is big business for. me. i stay as the theme of this man is a. he won't show his face because he imports goods from the united states but it's human exportation and exploitation where the real money is a. good. employer i'm not. going to.

buy a. place was a pleasure sandwich board as it would get a god. but there in lies the irony of the situation the legal route into the us is fraught with as many obstacles as a trek through the desert. regardless of one's political allegiance regardless of whether someone's an activist or humanitarian you can't. turn away from those and i hear often i hear people say well i like the migrants i just don't like the illegal migrant or like immigrants just those who come in legally and i think his people are either extremely naive or. stubborn or. you're turning their back on the situation because there's no way these people

can come in legally. though as the saying goes do good fences make good neighbors many would argue it's merely the symptoms that are being addressed not the cause and that is an issue for both sides of the fence i think a chain fall that a country as rich as mexico. is forcing poor people to come to another country to work i would suggest that it is shameful that the president of mexico calls people who go to other countries illegally to work heroes . and i think it's shameful that of both our countries that we can't get together and work out some sort of sensible policy. melissa owens lives with the reality of illegal migration this is her backyard it stretches as far as

the eye can see well basically mexico is about four and a half miles right over that ridge right there this is due south but she's seen enough of the problems and trespass as. i would say we would have at least one group of fifteen to twenty people at least every night sometimes groups of men but sometimes women with children in their arms. waking me up you know they have no idea what to do the last they just need help. they've been told by their guides their call your days that it's six months to where they're going to get up to the top of that ridge and there this is the view they get to look out across the valley obviously there's nothing. but within the picturesque landscape melissa's ranch resembles a fortified compound enclosed by rays

a while to keep her safe and intruders out i had some men i don't know how many it was attempt to break in my house while i was here and they were actually kicking in the door. and i was so i was here by myself and it was it was it was not a good experience so i think i'm pretty tough but i don't particularly want to have that happen again alone in such a remote environment melissa is prepared to defend her property when i work away from the house i wear a small head and i have it on my belt almost all the time i wear it for protection i hope to god i never have to use this gun and i don't like having to wear it doesn't make me feel. powerful or important but on the other hand if i'm ever in a really bad situation i want to be able to defend myself. an

emotionally charged issue that legal migration has polarized americans it's an issue debated by politicians thousands of kilometers away in washington d.c. but one which affects individuals at the border directly if i didn't have the greatest respect for hispanic culture i sure would. be here is that in mexico border. i'm not talking about race i'm not talking about nationality i'm talking about people who are on my land and in my country illegally i don't want. people i don't know walking across my land and i don't care whether they're from finland or togo or water mala. i don't want them here. it's

a small war zone. people don't know what it is i wish they would come here at the moment it's very quiet with beautiful big clouds but at certain times of day their helicopters out here their horse patrols their a.t.v.'s around their guys that look like darth vader they're completely covered in black and they carry guns and they're out here looking for people like the man we met today. it's another way to instill fear in america. since this film first ad the u.s. continue to increase spending on border security at no other time in history has there been as many border patrol officers on duty as there are today and now the authorities are bracing for a new challenge children since twenty fourteen the number of families and unaccompanied children apprehended at the border keeps skyrocketing young people are filling family detention centers having fled the chief or extreme violence in

central america. today the border issue is taking center stage in u.s. politics as u.s. president donald trump gets serious about one of his biggest campaign promises we will build the yes we will. go to. zero. and under put it on. u.s. and british companies have announced the biggest discovery of natural gas in west africa but what to do with these untapped natural resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to for the dry river beds like this one five years on the syrians still feel battered for even those who managed to escape their countries have been truly unable to escape the war. in the most unlikely places. to challenge the

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figures of the twentieth century and how why will recent influence the course of history beginning with the giants of the struggle for civil rights the amount. of interest and it was all the work of vailable who oppressed people government look at me and continue to think that negroes to be different that what you mean by that about malcolm x. and martin luther king preached to fix at this time on al jazeera. this is al jazeera. and i welcome to the al-jazeera news our life or my headquarters in doha for me and as a purana.