When The Border Is Just Next-Door, Crossing It Is A Fact Of (Daily) Life
The two Nogales — one in Arizona, the other in Mexico — are in separate countries, but to the people who live there, they feel like one place: a border city.
Depending on where you sit, the US-Mexico border is:
a.) a dangerous frontier that allows drug traffickers and illegal immigrants to cross freely into the U.S.
or
b.) a familiar frontier that's navigated as a regular part of everyday life.
For people who live along the border in the twinned cities of Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Mexico, it's nearly always the latter.
The sister cities are known collectively as Ambos Nogales, or "Both Nogales."
Nogales, Ariz., is less than a tenth of the size of its Mexican counterpart: about 20,000 people compared to 250,000 on the Mexican side.
In both directions, cross-border excursions are a normal thing.
If you live on the Arizona side, you just take a short walk
