In Yuma, south-west Arizona, just a short distance from a gap in the 30-foot-high border barrier between the US and Mexico, Fernando “Fernie” Quiroz collects piles of shoes, shoelaces and clothing from the dirt road and carries them to a large red dumpster already overflowing with personal belongings.
Every day, hundreds of people arrive at gaps in this stretch of border wall to request political asylum from uniformed federal border agents who stand waiting under a rudimentary metal shade structure in the Sonoran desert heat.
