Mexico's would-be border crossers undermine Trump's case for a wall

When Donald Trump views the prototypes of his proposed border wall outside San Diego on Tuesday he could say, truthfully, that just a few miles south there are hundreds of Mexican men desperate to break into the United States.

You can find them at shelters like Casa del Migrante, a hostel for migrants in Tijuana, a sprawling city with a soaring murder rate. They admit they have no permission to live in the US and are determined to enter illegally.

Some have glimpsed the prototypes the president will inspect and concede they look formidable: 30ft high with state-of-the-art technology to withstand or impede blowtorches, jackhammers, ropes and ladders.

“Honestly, I don’t know how I’d get over it,” said Félix Mateos, who saw the eight prototypes last week while trying to sneak across the border.

The stories of Mateos and many other would-be border crossers here, however, dent the case for the wall.

Few seem to match the “bad hombres” – rapists, murderers, drug traffickers – that Trump conjured to sell the wall to voters during the 2016 election.

An increasing proportion are people who lived for years or decades in the US, working and raising families, and were deported for minor infractions.

Mateos, 54, lived in California since the age of 16 and harvested grapes, nuts and peaches in the fields around Modesto, earning $14 an hour.

Source: theguardian