Good neighbours make fences

摘要

For the past four years Steve Johnston has been dropping food, water and socks in the Sonoran desert. They are intended for illegal immigrants, who have often been walking for three or four days. D e-mand has never been greater. Recently Mr Johnston left 80 gallons of water beside a popular trail, and returned the next day to find all but eight gallons gone. He has encountered 40-strong groups walking in broad daylight. It is, oddly, proof that America's growing border fence is having an effect on illegal immigration.rnThe reason so many immigrants are tramping through Mr Johnston's neighbourhood can be found 12 miles to the south-west. Around Sasabe, steel cylinders have been sunk into the desert to create an imposing fence. That has blocked a popular migration route and driven people east. No More Deaths, a humanitarian group, has drawn up a map of migration routes based on how much water and food disappears. It looks like a leaf skeleton-a pattern of interlocking lines snaking north through the desert, then east to just above a checkpoint. From there, immigrants are driven to Tucson and Phoenix, whence they travel to wherever there are jobs.