Borderline Cases investigates the environmental impact of the nearly 2,000 factories--maquiladoras--that have been built in Mexico at the US-Mexico border by multinational corporations from the US, Asia and Europe. In the early rush to globalization these factories, whose workers are paid a fraction of US wages, did not need to comply with costly environmental regulations. The result, according to one reporter, is that the border became "a 2,000 mile long open sewer, a vast toxic waste dump." The public debate over NAFTA brought the border's problems to light. Today environmental issues take an important place in US-Mexico relations.