SUE MAKES A BREAK FOR THE BORDER

Sue Perkins on her harrowing 2,000-mile trip along the ‘Wall’ dividing Mexico and America

Presenter Sue Perkins calls it ‘pretty much the most contentious structure on the planet’. The series of vertical barriers along the Mexico-united States border, known simply as ‘The Wall’, inspires everything from fear and loathing to pride among those who live in the two nations it separates.

For those who don’t live there, news coverage tends to focus on the horrors of the violent drug cartels that operate in the area, or the stories of desperate migrants trying to flee Central America for a new life in the North. Yet for many people in communities nestled either side of the wall – begun in the 1990s under President Clinton – the area is simply home. In a new two-part BBC1 series, Sue Perkins: Along The Us-mexico Border, the presenter travels among them to find out what life is really like behind the grim headlines.

It’s an epic journey that takes Sue 2,000 miles from the Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico – on foot, by car and even in a kayak on the Rio Grande river, which forms part of the border. ‘I walked along it, I drove along it, I got a boat along it,’ Sue says with a smile.

It takes her through vibrant cities steeped in culture and tradition, and the spectacular landscape of national parks – but also into some of the most dangerous places in the world, the battlegrounds for ongoing drug wars. One such place is Tijuana, a city with a murder rate that’s among the highest in the world and where Sue’s journey – and the border – starts.

With the US city of San Diego just to the north, Tijuana has one of the busiest land crossings in the world, used by some 75 million people every year. Sue visits the city’s poignantly named Friendship Park, the only place along the border that allows families separated by deportation or lack of papers to unite by pressing their fingertips through holes in a mesh fence. But access to the park on the American side is limited to just a few hours at weekends. ‘What’s most painful is the sense of normality – the sense that this is the way it is,’ says Sue.

There are plenty more stories of heartbreak as Sue meets migrants camped along the border. But she also examines law enforcement – on the US side Sue spends a day with the sheriff of Pinal County in Arizona to find out more about the battle with Mexican cartels that traffic people and drugs.

Then there’s the good life – at the coast south of the border

Sue meets some of the many American retirees who’ve settled there, able to buy breathtaking beachside homes that would cost several times as much in the US.

While in Mexico, Sue learns it’s a country that likes to party. She relishes the chance to attend the national Day of the Dead festival, when family and friends gather to celebrate those who have died. And she goes to a ‘quinceañera’, the celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday, which Sue describes as a mixture between ‘a bar mitzvah and a debutante’s ball’.

And for all the chasms in society that Sue uncovers, the series ends on a note of hope. ‘Everything I’ve seen on my journey has been about family, about people doing their best for the next generation, whether that’s protecting what they have or giving them opportunities for a better future,’ she says. ‘In this divided part of the world there’s a lot that people have in common.’ n

Kathryn Knight Sue Perkins: Along The Us-mexico Border will be screened in the coming weeks on BBC1.

With the county sheriff in Arizona