Portside

There is not enough space to catalogue all the crimes committed collectively by western countries that now feel besieged by migrants of color.

Although wall construction began during Bill Clinton’s administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) built most of the approximately 700 miles of fencing after the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was passed. The 2006 wall-building project was expected to be so environmentally destructive that homeland security chief Michael Chertoff waived 37 environmental and cultural laws in the name of national security.

A revelatory look at how a unique border-crossing set of partnerships among Israel’s high-tech companies (many involved in developing border wall technology in their own land), an Arizona tech park, and Mexican low-wage factories is intent on creating a “virtual wall” to shut down and militarize the U.S.-Mexican border.

The parts of the border that take the form of an actual, physical barrier are an intrusion on the landscape, an eyesore to many — and to millions, a deadly obstacle to overcome. Just as immigrant rights activists see the border as a violent social barrier, environmentalists see the border fence as an assault on the integrity of regional ecologies.