Its detractors call it the Eye of Sauron, and its defenders, “the guardian of Chihuahua.” The Sentinel Tower is a multi-million-dollar investment, a borderland’s bet on security. It’s the tallest building in Ciudad Juárez, that which best represents the fear of mass surveillance. And this week, it became a new battlefield in the political war between Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s left-wing administration and the state government of the right-leaning political party PAN’s Governor Maru Campos. At 25 stories, the tower has come under scrutiny after the brutal car crash in which two CIA agents and two officials who were part of Chihuahua’s State Investigation Agency were killed. The death of the foreign agents, whose presence was unauthorized by the federal government, has led to the latest battle between the Morena administration and one of the few states still governed by an opposition party in Mexico. Since then, there’s been one question on everyone’s minds: how far is Donald Trump’s reach via operatives in Mexico, thanks to the country’s state governments?

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Kevin persuaded his girlfriend, Yosselyn Guerrero, to leave Tapachula for Mexico City with a simple promise: a furnished room awaited them in the Mexican capital. They would finally have a bed — no more sleeping on the floor of a borrowed house. The 30‑year‑old Salvadoran woman hesitated. On the border she already had a job in a small restaurant, and heading farther north meant putting even more distance between herself and her family in Santa Ana, who kept begging her to come home. In the end, Kevin’s plan prevailed. He chose the coyotes and the route, which included a stretch by boat across the ocean.

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