EPA Website: No U.S. Border
Quoting from the article:
Sometime before the 2000 election I received an email about groups in Southern California calling for an end to the U.S.-Mexican border and the creation of a 'border zone"- an area 50 miles on either side of the U.S.-Mexican border that would become independent of either country.
I dismissed this as, well, wacky.
I don't anymore.
This past summer the respected magazine The Economist devoted several pages to this concept, suggesting that the idea of a 'third country' between Mexico and the United States has merit.
The magazine reported that 'thinking of the border as a separate country makes some kind of sense" because a "third nation" straddling the U.S.-Mexican border already has developed between Dan Diego/Tijuana on the west to Brownsville, Texas on the east.
Of course, the border is an imaginary political line. bust some would expand this line into a 'zone' or 'region' or 'area' that would become a separate country.
[snip]
The Economist says the genesis for the border zone 'country' germinated from NAFTA. As the U.S. and Mexican economies integrate, the need for a fixed border evaporates -- so the thinking goes. [snipped to end]