17 Powerful Instagram Photos That Capture The Tragedy At The U.S.-Mexico Border

The images illustrate the frustration of those who live along the border and tell a harrowing story for those trying to make their way into the U.S. illegally.

British photographer Charles Ommanney spent three weeks traveling the length of the U.S.-Mexico border for an upcoming mini-documentary about immigration. The images he collected along the way illustrate the frustration of those living along the border and tell a harrowing story of exclusion and disillusionment for those trying to make their way into the U.S. illegally in large part from Mexico and Central America. The first part of the mini-documentary aired Monday on MSNBC. These are some of the things he saw.

In Brownsville, Texas, a man wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet takes a walk on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande where the river meets the sea.

Just a few miles west in Los Indios, Texas, a girl walking toward the river where she remembers swimming with her siblings as a child.

In the Mexican border town of Nuevo Progreso, a musician counting his earnings.

In McAllen, Texas, Border Patrol agents detaining a group of men and women from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico, who were found hiding in a drainage ditch.

A group of women and children, exhausted and hungry after traveling together from Guatemala and Honduras, detained by Border Patrol on the levee in McAllen, Texas.

An overwhelmed Honduran man caught by Border Patrol in McAllen, Texas, after walking for days.

A young child waiting to cross at the Hidalgo Port of Entry in South Texas.

In Hidalgo, Texas, a place where the steel beam wall gives way to rugged terrain, one of the many gaps along the nearly 2,000-mile long border.

In Falfurrias, Texas, small unmarked graves marking the final resting place for unidentified migrants who died while trekking through dangerous areas in order to avoid Border Patrol.

A border agent watching over a man who is waiting for his car to be inspected at the Paso Del Norte crossing in El Paso, Texas.

Across the fence, just a stone’s throw away, an extremely poor neighborhood in Anapra, Mexico, near El Paso.

A girl’s shoe half-buried in dirt in the high desert west of El Paso, Texas.

A teddy bear half-buried in the dirt in Sunland Park, New Mexico, west of El Paso.

The "Serpent"-like wall cutting through beautiful landscapes in Nogales, Arizona.

Near San Diego, a contractor fixing holes in the fence where smugglers cut their way through the night before.

In Friendship Park/Tijuana south of San Diego, a woman pokes her finger through weaved rods intended to keep people from passing objects through the fence.

A woman seen through the fence, which extends into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

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