Trump's $20M-per-mile border wall can be bypassed with simple power tools: report
Immigrants seeking to cross the U.S.-Mexico border wall — which cost an estimated $20 million per mile to build — can wield simple power tools to saw their way through.
That's according to a new article in the Independent, which added that in some southern Arizona sections, severed pillars of the famous border wall can be pushed open by hand. In other sections of the state, the terrain is too rugged to build and the wall stands unconnected.
During Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, his favorite slogan, "Build the wall," never came up. Now, there's a question about whether he's giving up the cause.
The Independent recalled the longest government shutdown in history, triggered by Trump's demand for funding for his border wall. Ultimately, he got it. Still, the "wall" he promised hasn't been built. But it doesn't mean he will return to ensure the structure is built.
Instead of the wall, "Trump now wants a "bloody" mass deportation operation immediately removing millions of people, including by potentially reviving family separation," the report quoted.
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The report pointed to a local advocacy group in the Rio Grand Valley that says the "wall" has taken away the residents' little green space. Michelle Serrano, who runs Voces Unidas RGV, noted that another problem is that the "wall" has made local flooding worse and terrified its large Latino community with around-the-clock surveillance.
“This is like a rights-free area,” she told The Independent. “We’re talking about an area where they freely racially profile us. It feels like a separate but equal situation.”
The Republican Party still has building the wall as a key piece of its platform, but the topic isn't surfacing amid discussions about immigration.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden pledged not to build any more of the wall, but the efforts on the border continued. A court then told the White House they must spend the money allocated in 2019-20 on building the wall. There was then a problem with environmental disasters that the Biden White House tried to side-step, only to be told by the courts that they had to do the environmental cleanup prior to building the wall.
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While Trump wasn't in the White House, GOP governors funded their projects to build Trump's promised wall. In Texas, that's 50 miles of state-funded wall.
"It’s an incredible amount of effort and spending for a piece of border policy that hasn’t been shown to make any meaningful difference in reducing migration overall," the report continued.
Trump's new plan is to orchestrate the deportation of 11 million documentary immigrants. The Trump team claims they'll start with criminals. Crossing the border illegally is a crime, however. So, Trump's team will be able to argue that anyone who crossed without claiming asylum or beginning the immigration process is technically a "criminal."
Given the mass deportations are part of his flagship 2024 campaign promise, Trump could request funding for that over the wall when making his pitch to Congress.