Michael Dear, author of the recent book Why Walls Won’t Work, and founding editor of Society and Space, writes on the US-Mexico border in The New York Times. Thanks to Andrew Burridge for the link.

NEARLY 700 miles of walls now separate the United States and Mexico. Would-be migrants still find ways over, under, through and around them. As a tool for controlling immigration to the United States, the border fortifications have been remarkably ill suited to the task. And yet these barriers are having a significant and lasting effect nonetheless: they are harming communities on both sides of the border.

We should tear them down before the damage becomes irreparable. [continues]