Reagan had said in Harlingen, Texas, in the wilting heat, following a performance by a mariachi band to entertain the largely Mexican American crowd: that he would grant visas to undocumented Mexican immigrants “for whatever length of time they want to stay.… You don’t build a nine-foot fence along the border between two friendly nations.” The fence had been a Carter administration proposal back in December 1978—the “Tortilla Curtain,” the notional twenty-seven-mile barrier had been dubbed by horrified human rights activists,
