Mexico's border with California resembles a demilitarized zone

David Bejarano was a police officer in San Diego back in the 1980s, when he said the U.S. border with Mexico was truly out of control. "You could drive a trailer across (from Mexico) with people, dope, whatever you wanted," he said. "We used to have hundreds of people literally rushing across Interstate 5." Now, Mexico's border with California — the birthplace of the 649-mile-long border fence being built by the USA— resembles a demilitarized zone. In highly populated areas south of San Diego, U.S. Border Patrol vehicles patrol dirt roads between 18-foot-high fences. Cameras monitor hard-to-reach valleys, and drivers must idle through Border Patrol checkpoints that sit 4,000 feet above sea level along Interstate 8 in the Jacumba Mountains. The San Diego County Sheriff's Office is even enlisting beach lifeguards to help identify smugglers bearing drugs and illegal immigrants by boat from Mexico...more