The politics of immigration play differently along the US-Mexico border

SUNLAND PARK, N.M. (AP) — The politics of immigration look different from the back patio of Ardovino’s Desert Crossing restaurant.

That’s where Robert Ardovino sees a Border Patrol horse trailer rumbling across his property on a sweltering summer morning. It’s where a surveillance helicopter traces a line in the sky, and a nearby Border Patrol agent paces a desert gully littered with castoff water bottles and clothing.

It’s also where a steady stream of weary people, often escorted by smugglers, scale a border wall or the slopes of Mount Cristo Rey and step into an uncertain future. It’s a stretch of desert where reports of people dying of exhaustion and exposure have become commonplace.

“It’s very obvious to me, being on the border, that it’s not an open border. It is a very, very, very difficult situation,” said Ardovino, who pays for private fencing topped by concertina wire to route migrants around a restaurant and vintage aluminum trailers that he rents to overnight guests.

“I wish the facts would rule this conversation, and being here, I know they do not.”

As immigration politics have moved to the forefront of this year’s presidential election, they’ve dominated contests across the country for congressional seats that could determine which party controls Congress. But the urgency of the situation is greater in some districts than others.

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