TIJUANA, Mexico — A busy Friday at the Tijuana crossing between the United States and Mexico: Some 90,000 people stream across the lofted footbridge, a mix of tourists, shoppers, workers and students moving in a symbiotic rhythm.

They spend, work and study on both sides of the border, with this back-and-forth flow happening in the face of arguably the most fortified part of the wall that sits between the United States and Mexico along the nearly 2,000-mile border.

Reinforced walls have been a relatively recent addition to the local landscape. From the crossing between San Ysidro in San Diego and El Chaparral in Tijuana, one can see earlier, less foreboding iterations of the wall, like the one signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

In the years since, the wall has been added to, adjusted and amplified — a living testament of sorts to the enduring and often political nature of wall-building along the border.

On the immigration issue, Tijuana has long been a hot spot of political and media attention, a sort of stand-in for the border writ large, however mistaken the idea.

And it was no different on a recent visit.

Thanks to the arrival in the city of thousands of migrants, traveling in caravans for safe passage from Central America, and because of the hectoring focus of President Donald Trump, Tijuana has attracted the bulk of attention.

It has become the flashpoint and symbol for all that is happening along the border: the supposed chaos, the real desperation and the political crisis that has both bound and distanced the governments of the United States and Mexico.

And so it was on a recent Friday that dozens of journalists, lawyers and aid workers gathered in the concrete plaza just outside the Tijuana crossing, waiting for the latest chapter in the border crisis to unfold.

In an awkwardly coordinated effort, the U.S. and Mexican governments had announced that they would start a “Remain in Mexico” program.

The policy was aimed at forcing asylum-seekers to the United States to return to Mexico while they awaited a decision on their application.

The decision was sudden, and for migrants, devastating.

Having endured the trek north, through routes brimming with thieves and smugglers, the migrants found that the road to asylum in the United States would end, for now, in Mexico.

The United States applauded what it called a binational effort.

Mexican officials insisted, however, that the plan was forced on them and that they had no say in the matter, but that they would take the asylum-seekers back in the spirit of humanitarianism.

Those gathered to respond to the ramifications of the deal — reporters to cover it, along with lawyers and activists to offer counsel and assistance — filled the plaza in tribal clusters and waited for a returnee to pass back through the gates, which would be a repudiation of decades of asylum practices in the United States.

Instead, the only thing that passed through the crowd was rumor.

Someone heard that the first returnee was due at any moment. Within seconds, a line of journalists staged themselves in front of the exit. A family approached, carrying suitcases and small bags. They paused to look at the phalanx of journalists, then passed without a word. They were not the returnees.

As the crowd waited for someone to come back, white vans were lined up in a parking lot, preparing to take another set of migrants across to apply for asylum.

Volunteer aid workers stood pressed against the white metal bars, whispering goodbyes and shedding tears.

They grew hostile as journalists took pictures, with a few of the volunteers shouting at the photographers to stop. These were asylum-seekers under threat, the volunteers said, and they could be endangered if their image surfaced in the media.

When that request didn’t work, the volunteers began sticking their hands in front of cameras to block them. A few tugged at camera straps. A Mexican journalist took issue with an American activist.

“I have a right to do this,” he said in Spanish. “I’m following the law, in my country. When I’m in your country, I’ll follow the law there. But don’t tell me how to act in my country.”

His aggressor recoiled, and then claimed the high ground. She told the crowd she was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the migrants, who seemed to have no problem at all with the journalists taking pictures and asking questions.

“I’ll take a black eye if I have to,” she announced, although the threat she seemed to be describing wasn’t immediately apparent. “I mean, I don’t want to, but it’s worth it to protect these people.”

The standoff continued for a few more minutes, until the vans had loaded everyone up and driven away.

The knot of journalists and activists loosened, and eventually, with no sign of any returnees, everyone left.

Four days later, the first returnee, a bleary-eyed Honduran man worn from his multiday ordeal, would pass back into Mexico. Upon entry, he was whisked away by Mexican officials before he could be interviewed.

If theatricality has become a reality along the border here, one could argue that Trump is its full-time producer.

The language of crisis and chaos, however unfounded, has prompted a wave of coverage, especially in the United States.

In Mexico, forcing migrants to wait months to cross and apply for asylum has left thousands in a state of man-made crisis.

Some leave. Others find work in Mexico and wait for better days, or cross illegally elsewhere. A few have attempted to rush the wall, only to be beaten back with tear gas.

Those images can lend credence to the border-as-chaos plotline — that the United States is under threat and that only walls and deterrence can protect it. That anyone, if given the chance, would gladly sneak across to make a new life in the United States.

But where the border comes to its western end, where the wall dives into the Pacific Ocean and its barnacled stanchions split the crashing surf, another image prevails.

On the United States side, the beach is abandoned, undeveloped, barren. In the distance, San Diego is barely discernible in the evening haze.

The entire beachfront on the Mexico side pulses with life. The portraits of misery and desperation give way to a Friday on the beach in Tijuana.

A child runs in circles on the damp sand, screaming with delight as a small dog chases close behind. A group of hippies dance in a drum circle. Young couples saunter down to the water’s edge to snap selfies in front of the wall.

Music rains down from the short bluffs overhead, as restaurants and bars begin to fill. Families spread blankets on the sand to watch the sunset. Beachfront stands sell sticks of grilled shrimp.

An openness prevails. Amid the cacophony, a brass band begins a set of folk tunes, a sonic dissonance no one seems to mind.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.