El Paso was the second-largest city on the US-Mexico border, smaller only than San Diego. But that designation overstated the size and remoteness of the place. Fewer than seven hundred thousand residents lived there, and the nearest American cities were hundreds of miles away. The Border Patrol sector was much vaster than the city itself. It covered 268 miles of the border, including the two westernmost counties in Texas as well as the entirety of New Mexico.
