In Photos: Immigration to the United States

A volunteer for the Arizona Border Recon (AZBR) paramilitary group patrols in Pima County in 2016. The college student said he felt it was his duty to help protect the nation’s borders. ‘There’s evil going on here,’ he said. The AZBR claims to have up to 200 volunteers and does not consider itself a militia but rather a group of citizens supplementing US Border Patrol efforts

Handcuffed immigrants comfort each other after being caught by federal agents near the border at Weslaco, Texas, in 2016

A border patrol agent on duty at the Imperial Sand Dunes near Felicity, California, in 2016. The 15ft border fence, also known as the ‘floating fence’, sits on the dunes and moves with the shifting sands. Agents said they caught groups of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers daily despite the forbidding terrain