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The city is so close to the U.S. border fence that it practically leans on it. Even as Tijuana diversifies, its economy still relies on the frontier. Its residents are the perfect border citizens.

Initially, she ran from agents in her attempt to illegally enter the U.S. But after three days alone in the Arizona desert, Brenda lit a fire to get their attention. Her story is not uncommon.

Columbus, New Mexico, has a rich border history. Pancho Villa stormed across in 1916. Today, kids on the Mexico side take a bus — driven by the Columbus mayor — across the border to go to school.

Juarez, Mexico — terrifyingly violent a few years ago — is quieter now. But life across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, is still difficult for many.

U.S. border officials are constantly on alert for drugs coming in from Mexico. But they are also on the lookout for huge sums of cash leaving the U.S. and trickling back into Mexican communities.

Nuns run La Posada Providencia, a shelter in south Texas, just across from Mexico. But the asylum seekers are a veritable United Nations, coming from places like Ethiopia, Albania and Nepal.

Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, used to be an underground folk saint in Mexico. Now she's also popular in the U.S. So popular, in fact, that the Vatican has denounced her.

At The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, historian Frank de la Teja explains how the dividing line between the United States and Mexico came to be drawn where it is.

Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep traveled the length of the U.S.-Mexico border to explore how the two countries are linked — and how they are separated.