Trump border wall builders ‘smuggled armed, unvetted Mexican guards INTO United States’, whistleblowers claim
DONALD Trump’s border wall builders smuggled armed and unvetted Mexican guards into the United States to guard their construction sites, court documents say.
The whistleblower lawsuit unsealed by a federal judge on Friday alleged that the company building the San Diego sector border wall illegally used armed Mexican nationals to provide site security.
The bombshell allegations published by the New York Times on Monday claim one subcontractor allegedly built a dirt road to speed up their illegal operations in California.
Two site security staffers accused Sullivan Land Services Co (SLSCO) of allowing subcontractor, Ultimate Concrete of El Paso to hire unvetted workers, to overprice construction costs, and making false statements.
The accusations were made by a former deputy sheriff in San Diego County and a former FBI special agent, who had been providing security during the wall’s construction.
Court filings allege that Ultimate Concrete built the dirt road to facilitate these illegal border crossings and “allow access from the Mexican side of the border into the United States.”
“This U.C.-constructed road was apparently the route by which the armed Mexican nationals were unlawfully crossing into the United States,” it stated.
According to the stunning complaint filed in February and released last week, an unnamed supervisor at the Army Corps of Engineers approved the operation.
The Sun contacted the Department of Homeland Security, the Army Corps of Engineers, and SLS for comment on Tuesday.
Sullivan Land Services Co spokesperson Liz Rogers Alvarado told The Sun “as company policy, SLSCO does not comment on litigation.”
There was no answer on the listed telephone number for Ultimate Concrete despite several attempts to call the company today.
The Times also reported that Trump’s wall, which he’s touted as “impenetrable,” has been repeatedly breached as recently as September, according to documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
These breaches then required repairs which were allegedly done by people who weren’t authorized to work in the United States.
The concrete bollards were broken through a whopping 320 times between October 2019 and March 2020 in San Diego, Tucson, and El Centro in California, as well as in Yuma, Arizona, according to the documents obtained by the Times.
The bombshell suit was filed in the Southern District of California.
The federal government investigated the allegations while they remained sealed as they decided whether to pursue the accusations – last week, the Justice Department notified the court that it wouldn’t be intervening.
The judge then unsealed it.
Whistleblowers can then pursue the case or get it settled or dismissed with the permission of the federal government.
The president of Ultimate Concrete Jesse Guzman dismissed the allegations, telling the Times it was a case of two disgruntled former employees.
“Everybody can allege whatever they want to, and that does not make it correct or make it the truth,” he said, indicating that the two whistleblowers were just angry “something didn’t go their way.”
Most read in News
“Lack of comment should not be construed as agreement or stipulation with any of the allegations,” US Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Greg Davis told the newspaper.
The whistleblowers also accused SLS and Ultimate Concrete of submitting fake invoices for border wall costs, as well as “hiding” the full profits of the project from the federal government.
President-elect Joe Biden wants to halt construction of the border wall but the Trump administration is reportedly rushing to complete as much wall as possible within the next few weeks.