A Juarez, Mexico, municipal police officer rousts a suspected drug user and dealer from an abandonded building during a roundup. Mass roundups are a common method of anti-drug enforcement in some Mexican border cities, but civil-rights groups say too many innocent people get caught in the operations.

The U.S.-Mexico border is a vibrant place. Each year, legal and illegal border crossers number in the millions. International metro areas, including San Diego-Tijuana, Brownsville-Matamoros and El Paso-Juarez have economies that are intertwined.

Amid all this commerce and movement of people, the drug trade hides and flourishes.

At left, U.S. Customs officials stand by a utility vehicle found to be carrying bricks of marijuana in a hidden compartment while entering the U.S. at the Ysleta Bridge at Zaragoza Road in El Paso, Texas. Border crossers at international bridges sometimes have to wait for over an hour as inspectors conduct more thorough searches for contraband.


Below left, A U.S. Border Patrol helicopter flies low along the Rio Grande, searching for suspicious activity. Below right, Mexican Federal Judicial Police sift through marijuana found in a Chihuahua, Mexico, warehouse.

A heavily-armed Mexican police
officer watches over marijuana
found in a warehouse in
Chihuahua state.