For a soulless city, Phoenix certainly has an interesting airport. The last time I was here, supposedly on business, I had my boarding pass issued by a vampire and found myself being herded through security by an official dressed as a giant chicken. Then it was Halloween, but here we are on an ordinary June afternoon and circumstances seem no less strange. I am stuck in a lift between arrivals and car rental with a Mexican cradling a large, foul-smelling ice chest in his arms.
What’s in the box? I ask.
‘A feesh,’ he whispers, ‘for my wife and children. I catch him in Veracruz.’
A sea bass, you understand, will not be the only thing smuggled out of Mexico today. Illegal immigration has shot to the top of the US political agenda and with a view to researching a documentary on the subject, I am, along with two colleagues, heading down to the Mexican border to talk to the disparate factions who stand on opposing sides of this increasingly bitter front line.
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