New Mexico sees construction of first privately-funded section of border wall - Trump-approved - UPDATES

Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Mon, 27 May 2019 19:54 UTC

© Image courtesy of We Build the Wall

A private group announced Monday that it has constructed a half-mile wall along a section of the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico, in what it said was a first in the border debate.

The 18-foot steel bollard wall is similar to the designs used by the Border Patrol, sealing off a part of the border that had been a striking gap in existing fencing, according to We Build the Wall, the group behind the new section.

The section was also built faster and, organizers say, likely more cheaply than the government has been able to manage in recent years.

Kris Kobach, a former secretary of state in Kansas and an informal immigration adviser to President Trump, says the New Mexico project has the president's blessing and says local Border Patrol agents are eager to have the assistance.

"We're closing a gap that's been a big headache for them," said Mr. Kobach, who is general counsel for We Build the Wall.

The announcement comes at a critical time for the border.

Mr. Trump's plans to build hundreds of miles of new and replacement wall took a hit late last week when a federal judge ordered a halt to part of his emergency declaration and shifting of money within the Pentagon to make up for Congress's refusal to grant him the money he wanted.

Judge Haywood Gilliam says the president can't spend money when Congress has debated it and refused to approve it.

Enter We Build the Wall, which says now that it's proved it can build border wall. The group has eyes on other areas where private landowners hold border lands and want a barrier to cut down on the illegal traffic across their property.

The new wall begins at the Rio Grande and runs up to the lower elevations of Mount Cristo Rey. The wall on the Texas side ends at the river, and there used to be a gap on the New Mexico side running from the river over to Mount Cristo Rey.

© Google Earth

The pin marks Mount Cristo Rey, with the Rio Grande to the east, marking the borders between Texas, New Mexico and Mexico

Two parking lots, one on the Mexican side and one on the U.S. side, with naught but a ditch to separate them, offered a convenient staging point for would-be migrants.

Mr. Kobach says agents have told him perhaps 100 migrants a night cross - but the bigger problem is that they would cross, gaining agents' attention, then drug smugglers would use the distraction to run drugs through elsewhere in the gap.

A typical night could exceed $100,000 worth of drugs through the gap, Mr. Kobach said.

Construction began Friday and will be completed Tuesday. Tommy Fisher's Fisher Sand & Gravel did the construction.

Mr. Fisher has been in the news recently with Mr. Trump suggesting repeatedly and publicly that the government should consider his outfit for future border wall construction.

He was one of the contractors selected in 2017 to build wall prototypes in San Diego. None of those prototypes was deemed contract-worthy, and Congress has forbidden the Border Patrol from using any of those designs anyway.

More recently, Mr. Fisher announced he could build 234 miles of fencing at $1.4 billion - or about $6 million per mile. That's about a quarter of the cost of Mr. Trump's current fencing, which goes off at about $25 million per mile.

The half-mile in New Mexico cost $8 million, but Mr. Kobach said because part of it involved building on Mount Cristo Rey and involved moving a lot of dirt, that's more expensive than most mileage would be.

A private wall has been a dream of border security enthusiasts for years.

More than a decade ago, adherents of the Minuteman movement, which sought to draw attention to the lack of border barriers in Arizona, constructed some fencing on a ranch in southeastern Arizona. The fencing was approved by local authorities as a way to corral cattle but was also seen as a way of blocking illegal migration, The Arizona Daily Star reported in 2006.

Organizers said funding didn't materialize to finish that project.

The new wall in New Mexico is up along the border and designed just like the Border Patrol's structures, intended to be a deterrent to illegal crossing.

Stephen Dinan can be reached at [e-mail].

Comment:

UPDATE 31/05/2019: Sunland mayor's cease-and-desist order on construction rescinded and the project is nearly complete:

Over Memorial Day weekend the group began constructing a wall specifically along the southern border in New Mexico. These efforts were funded via GoFundMe donations.

Operations were halted Tuesday after [Sunland Park Mayor Javier] Perea issued a cease-and-desist order claiming that the group had failed to obtain the required permits from the city of Sunland Park before starting construction.

Kolfage doesn't appear too concerned by these bureaucratic threats. On Thursday he held a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by the group's board members, including former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and retired Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke.

"Look, never underestimate the determination of the American people," Clarke said.

"The American people have always been able to be counted on in a time of crisis. We've seen the stories with wildfires, with floods, with tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes that cause great devastation. The American people have always dug into their pockets to provide extra resources to help out. And that's kind of what happened here. This is a crisis here at the border."

[...]

Kolfage also excoriated the media for having shared "misinformation" and "fake news" claiming that the GoFundMe he launched last year was just a scam.

"There was a lot of misinformation out there about fake news that we're misappropriating funds and stuff like that," he said. "It's one hundred percent not true."

The evidence was lying just behind him. He added that the reason his team had kept their plans secret for so long was to avoid drawing the attention of evil people.

"As you can see behind me we just built this wall with these funds. So that is why we kept this whole project a secret. We weren't going to risk someone's life down here dealing with the cartels. [Unclear what he said] is one of the most ruthless cartels. And you know I've faced a lot of trauma in my life. I've faced a lot of people like them in Iraq and I wasn't going to risk anyone's life. We kept it quiet."

The full conference may be seen below:

UPDATE 02/06/2019: Construction nearly complete, with zero illegal border crossings in the last week. The barrier is already being probed for weaknesses by drug cartel military:

The construction team has used over 600 concrete trucks so far. They are also pouring concrete for a 25 foot speedway behind the all for Border Patrol agents.

Border Patrol officials say the current project when complete will cut off 19 different foot trails on Mount Cristo Rey on the border. The cartels are bringing $100,000 to $200,000 in drugs each day through the open border in this area.

Mike added this on the effectiveness of the current project, "When I got here 17 days ago there were 450 people a night crossing. When equipment started arriving it went to 300. When manpower started working we went down to 200. When we started placing the bollards it went from 70 to 30 to 0. We've had no crossings in the last 8 days."

Then Mike added this on the very security situation, "We have military clad specialists from the cartels probing our line. The only thing stopping them is our specialists in the hills counteracting with them. We expect to be completed late, late, late this evening or early tomorrow with the first segment of the wall. "

When asked about the security needed to deal with the drug cartels, Mike replied, "It's extremely dangerous. They got within 15 feet of the excavators last night. They're coming down and trying to probe against the new wall... We have approximately 15 guards on post, armed security individuals."