By Land or by Sea, Tougher US-Mexico Border Tests Illegal Immigrants Dave Graham - Reuters
go to original March 23, 2013

Risking it All Across Mexico: Chasing an Impossible Dream - Latin American migrants risk life and limb to reach the US border in search of the American dream. (AlJazeeraEnglish)

TIJUANA, Mexico - Mexican grandmother Lucia Angulo has entered the United States illegally so often over the past three decades that she has lost count of how many times border patrols caught her.

But when she left San Diego to visit her dying mother in Mexico last April, she knew it would be harder than ever to return. Nearly a year later, she was still trying.

Angulo is one of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to the United States who have felt the force of tougher U.S. policing, new barriers and record deportations, which have helped cut to nil the net migration flow from south to north, according to a study last year by the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center.

That an experienced border crosser like Angulo has struggled to make it back matters not just to her and her family, but to policymakers in Washington as Congress embarks on what may be the biggest overhaul to U.S. immigration laws since 1986.

How effective U.S. border security is in stopping illegal immigration will be vital to convincing lawmakers, mostly Republicans, to back the bipartisan reform and accept some of its more ambitious parts, such as creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.

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