Former Border Patrol agent Francisco Cantu gains a new understanding of the US-Mexican border.

Francisco's memoir about working for the US Border Patrol also tells the personal stories of those who risk all for a better life in the US.

Born to the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, the border is in his blood. His decision to become a law enforcer came after four years of learning about it through policy and history while studying international relations, and the realisation that theory isn't enough. He needs to be on the ground to understand the border in all its beauty, ugliness and danger.

After four years the personal toll leads him to leave the Patrol but when an immigrant friend does not return from a trip to Mexico Cantu is returned to a world which he discovers is impossible to leave behind.

His evocative account is interwoven with reflections on the history, culture, nature and psychology of the border, and is more broadly about life on either side of a boundary, wherever it is.

Abridged by Richard Hamilton

Concluded by Joseph Balderrama.

Producer: Elizabeth Allard

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2018. Show less