♪ this is "nightline." tonight, the dividing line. the president's visit to the border, marked with his signature, even at official ports of entry, defiant drug smugglers hiding in plain sight. >> this is approximately 14 pounds of heroin we had found. >> for those seeking refuge, the perilous journey north. inside the immigration debate, far from black and white. plus, for the gram, the perfect picture backdrop, and the most famous artist you've probably never heard of. >> anyone who believes they're

the most famous artist is the most famous artist. >> creating buzz by challenging pop culture. but first the "nightline" five. number one in just sixty seconds.

they took $12.8 billion from big tobacco. juul marketed mango, mint, and menthol flavors, addicting kids to nicotine. five million kids now using e-cigarettes. the fda said juul ignored the law with misleading health claims. now juul is pushing prop c, to overturn san francisco's e-cigarette protections. say no to juul, no to big tobacco, no to prop c. >> reporter: good evening. thank you for joining us. the immigration debate thrust again into the spotlight by a presidential visit to the border. tonight, we witness the

realities on the ground from a region that has a front row seat to the crisis. here's tom llamas with an inside look from the largest county on the southern border. >> this is the border barrier in this area which was and is still is a major drug trafficking and human trafficking corridor. >> reporter: thousands of miles from washington, sheriff mark napier is on the frontlines of the border crisis. >> we know that somebody came here with a kid. there's children's clothing, diapers, a small container of baby oil. >> reporter: for more than three decades, pima county, arizona has been his home. the largest county on the southern border. but on the national stage, what happens here has become a political flashpoint. >> it's a very powerful, very powerful wall, the likes of which probably to this extent has not been built before. >> reporter: just yesterday, president trump at the border south of san diego, signing a newly constructed section of the border wall and touting his

campaign promise. >> plus it's designed to absorb heat, so it's extremely hot. the wall is, you won't be able to touch it. you can fry an egg on that wall. >> reporter: this, the latest spectacle in a debate that's dominated headlines and divided the country. >> breaking news, the tense battle. >> the humanitarian crisis at the border. and perhaps most disturbing. >> a national emergency, citing an invasion on the border. >> it's a great political debate in washington dc. it's great fodder for media but this is my home. this is where i live. >> reporter: but from here, the lifelong republican warns against simplistic bluster. >> the border is clearly a public safety threat to my county because of the drug and human trafficking that comes across that border. public safety's not a partisan issue, it's not a political issue, it's quality of life, it's a human condition issue.

>> these people still have forty miles of desert to traverse before they get to something that would resemble civilization where they can be picked up by somebody else. >> my deputies do recover almost 100 bodies a year in the deserts of this county. that taxes our resources, but it also pulls at my strings from a humanitarian standpoint. >> so far this year, year to date in 2019, we've recovered 92 suspected undocumented border cross remains. >> reporter: chief medical examiner greg hess and his team work to identify remains recovered in the desert. a reality he says has spiked since the early 2000s. >> we went from, again, 15 remains recovered to 75 in the year 2000. in 2001, it was 77. in 2002, it was 145. >> reporter: on the exam table, the incomplete remains of an unidentified migrant discovered earlier this year. >> this person's a little bit on the older side.

you can see, for example, right here on the spine, that happens as the spine compresses over time. >> reporter: but with little to go on, hess says, the odds of identifying this person in the next few years are small. >> that was somebody's father, that that was somebody's brother, somebody's son. that's a human being, and a human being probably driven by very desperate decisions in their home country to make a very dangerous and illegal ingress in the united states that cost them their lives. one thing that we do need to do, and the president's correct, is we need to secure our southern border. i do understand the desperation. but say, "this is not a safe activity. do not try to come into this country illegally because you're going to victimized by criminals, by the environment and it's not a safe way to come into our country." >> reporter: the vast majority of immigrants enter the country legally, including asylum seekers like angel ramos.

last year, he and his son fernando fled honduras, and like many central american families, says they had no choice but to take the risk. >> reporter: they made the perilous three-month journey on foot, bus, and train to reach the u.s. border. unlike the hundreds of thousands who have crossed into the u.s. illegally, angel says he wanted to do it the right way petitioning for asylum to u.s. immigration officials at the nogales port of entry.

after a few days, immigration officials released angel and fernando at this shelter in tucson, arizona. the two allowed to stay in the u.s. as their asylum case makes it through the courts. but new policies under the trump administration are making it harder for asylum seekers like angel to seek refuge. while immigration dominates headlines, a constant concern on the border is stemming the flow of illegal drugs. the majority coming through legal ports of entry. >> we are usually directly involved in finding or assisting other agencies in finding hundreds of pounds a year. you can imagine how much is probably getting through and how much is actually in this country right now. >> reporter: sergeant patrick hilliker is with the border interdiction unit at the pima county sheriff's department. >> this is basically the opiate

epidemic that's going on right now with some fentanyl pills. >> this is approximately 14 pounds of heroin. this one in particular you can see they're in vacuum sealed bags and that's to contain the smell and make it so the dogs don't smell it. the southwest border has long been the primary entry point for heroin. in 2017, nearly a thousand pounds of heroin came through the tucson sector. >> hey frank, go ahead. i'm code 10. copy that. they're still meeting? >> right now we're with a unit watching what they believe is a stash house. if they see something that looks like there's some smuggling going on, we'll go try to stop the vehicle and talk with them. any way you can think of smuggling narcotics into this country, it's been done. they will pay people into bringing this stuff up and it's quick money.

sometimes, there's elderly people that are doing it, younger people, different nationalities, different citizenships. it's just whoever they can contact, talk into it and exploit. >> we've found it anywhere in a vehicle you can think of. radiators, fake battery compartments, fake flooring in the vehicle. they'll take everything out of the vehicle put in a fake floor, reweld it, paint it, put the carpet back over it, and put the seats back on and it's very difficult to find. >> we found what appears to be bricks of heroin inside of a backpack the subject was wearing. >> this is the backpack it was found in. we believe it's heroin, until we test it. until we weigh it, we're looking at one, two, three, four, five kilos that didn't get to their destination or sold to the community.

>> this is really the front line of a national issue, right here in our counties. >> reporter: for napier, these aren't far away threats but realities of his backyard. nuances too often lost amidst the noise. >> we need to secure our border for public safety reasons, national security reasons, and human rights reasons. no one can argue past those three points. let's get it done. let's secure the border and look at comprehensive immigration reform that has a good public policy foundation. >> our thanks to tom for that report. up next, the artist helping your selfie game stay strong. "close enough or nothing." definit mercedes-benz suvs were engineered with only one mission in mind. to be the best. in the category, in the industry...in the world.

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>> reporter: sometimes the perfect pictures on instagram are far from real. tonight we meet up with an artist cashing in on the experience, and who knows a thing or two about raising the bar on taking that selfie. here's lana zak. >> reporter: from pink houses to private jets, matty mo's art is an instagrammer's dream. search for "the most famous artist" on google. there among kahlo, picasso and warhol, you'll find this guy, >> a key takeaway is that the internet isn't real. surprise. >> reporter: the most famous artist you've never heard of. who's the most famous artist? >> the most famous artist is an idea. anyone that believes they're the most famous artist is the most famous artist. >> reporter: that's not true. >> it is. >> reporter: no. >> the whole idea is that you can be whatever you think you

can be. and so one -- one day a few years ago, i decided i wanted to try to be the most famous artist and i became it. rhow did you do it? >> selfi -- selfie friendly murals and headline worthy projects. >> reporter: he's also perfected search engine optimization by giving himself "the most famous artist" moniker back in 2004. what kind of ego does one have to have call themselves the most famous artist? >> ironically, i -- i'm trying to approach life with a lot less ego. he takes us behind the scenes in his studio to reveal that "the most famous artist" isn't just one person -- but is actually a kind of art collective. one of his collaborators is best known for creating the hollyweed sign, eventually charged for trespassing.

he now how his own cannabis line. in an era where social media "moments" dominate headlines, matty mo's proudly created hours. i'm gonna try and pin you down on this, though. >> okay. >> reporter: do you think you're a good artist, a great artist, or are you just an artist of deception? >> well, i don't quite know where this quote is from, but i say it all the time, which is -- a good artist is someone who uses the tools of their time to tell the stories of their time and contextualizes it in art past. and so in that context, i'm a great artist. i'm using the internet, which is the tool of our time, to tell the story of selfie culture. and i'm studying past artists to understand how my work fits in. whether or not the art market is ready for that is a different question. >> reporter: part performance artist, part businessman, matty mo reacts to the changing

cultural landscape around all of us. we followed him to the streets of melrose, epicenter of instagrammable moments. >> we flew 24 hours almost to capture the famous pink wall. >> i'd estimate 100,000 people a year take photos in front of this pink wall. >> reporter: but there's nothing special about it? >> it's a pink wall that people use to construct an identity on instagram. so there's something special about it. people are bored with their normal lives. they're looking for satisfaction in the form of likes and co mments on instagram. >> reporter: he unabashedly capitalizes on a generation selfie-obsessed. at one point deciding if someone else's pink wall creates this much buzz, he'll turn a whole block pink. >> hordes of people taking selfies descended upon it. and it became a major headline around the world. and that helped me become the most famous artist. >> reporter: do you see our obsessions with selfies and

creating this facade, this -- this idealized life that we're living -- instead of being in the moment. is that problem? >> it's not a problem like world hunger. it's silly. >> reporter: and in a twist, he claims his work actually fights against the most damaging part of selfie culture, the fear of missing out. >> fomo is brought about by an individual representing themselves at a time and place that is unattainable for others. and democratizing access to those types of experiences that individuals are using to create fomo is a fun mission. you seem like you're having a lot of fun. >> well, i'm glad you can tell, too. >> reporter: one of his more recent and participatory projects, making the private jet experience available to those of us who can't jump on our own plane to a private island. >> i'm using it as a platform.

part of maintaining most famous artist status means producing pop-culture art in the moment. >> the weekend that hulu and netflix dropped their fyre documentaries, i saw an opening which was a news cycle about this topic. and so we created an experience in a few days that was selfie friendly that rode the news cycle and crowds of people descended upon it. and why did they do so? primarily because they're trying to tell a story that their life is interesting and that they were part of something. >> reporter: this is matty's world. his next collaboration, the world of fruit, which like the "museum of ice cream", "candytopia" and "the color factory" draws fans in for the sake of experiential photo opps. not everyone is a fan of matty mo's approach to art. art dealer stefan simchowitz calls matty mo an interesting person who makes "garbage art." >> he reflects its -- its -- its -- its tragic problems.

the vapidity and venality of selfie culture, the fact that -- that the art just functions as a prop. so it's almost like drinking orange juice that is -- is yellow and sweet, but isn't made from oranges. it's just sugar and colored water made to taste with some preservatives like orange juice. >> reporter: it's devoid of any substance. >> it's devoid of any substance. and this is a fundamental problem in culture today. so matty mo, in a sense reflects in his practice the -- the -- the practices, the banality of culture as it exists today. the work is terrible. >> reporter: the most famous artist doesn't fully disagree. >> the definition of an artist by the art world, is definitely not one i fit into. the art world wouldn't call me an artist because i didn't go to art school and i'm not represented by galleries, and i don't show at art fairs. i'm actually using the internet and the democratic effects of software, to distribute my work. >> reporter: and he knows the greatest distribution of his work takes place when we pick up our phones. this is the most analytical i think anyone has ever been about

a selfie. >> we're selfie scientists. >> reporter: selfie scientists! did you just make that up right now? >> i think so. the illusionist, holding up a mirror to ourselves in a time of changing identity. is this all an illusion, or is the illusionist holding up a mirror to ourselves in a time of changing identities? it's how we bring real hope to our cancer patients- like viola. when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her team at ctca created a personalized care plan that treated her cancer and strengthened her spirit. so viola could focus on her future. their future. this is how we inspire hope. this is how we heal. cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. canco♪ ozempic®! ♪enters of aoh!ica. oh! (announcer) people with type 2 diabetes

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>> reporter: finally tonight, when a lifesaver lent them a helping hand, they came back for lemonade. a group of 30 bikers rolling up to one little girl's lemonade stand in denver, indiana. strolling up to 8-year-old bryanne sturch's stand for a drink. just a year ago, bryanne's mom, daryn, helped several of the bikers at the scene of a terrible highway crash. daryn's a nurse and stayed with five injured riders until emt's arrived. this week, a chance for some sweetened lemonade and even sweeter reunions. what a show of force. that's "nightline."

you can always catch our full episodes on hulu. good night, america.

they took $12.8 billion from big tobacco. juul marketed mango, mint, and menthol flavors, addicting kids to nicotine. five million kids now using e-cigarettes. the fda said juul ignored the law with misleading health claims. now juul is pushing prop c, to overturn