Under construction in Texas: The first new section of border wall
DONNA, Texas — Two giant construction cranes tower over harvested sugar cane fields, topped by a pair of checkered flags flapping in the wind. At a distance along this flat, rural stretch of the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, the two structures standing between the cranes resemble forlorn drive-in movie screens.
It began months behind schedule. It will cost about $167 million. And when it is done, this landmark section of the contentious wall project — a symbol of Trump’s presidency and a flashpoint for his critics — will extend the hard border with Mexico by just 8 miles.The government has been racing to meet a deadline — the president’s promise to build approximately 500 miles of border fencing by the end of 2020. According to Customs and Border Protection officials, about $9.
“I would’ve told you 15 years ago: ‘What are you smoking?’” said Victor Manjarrez Jr., a former Border Patrol sector chief in El Paso, Texas, who helped oversee the erection of the Bush-era border fence in the late 2000s. “But now, the big difference is it’s not just DOD resources. It’s contractors now who are working a hell of a lot faster than we ever could have imagined.”
Some private landowners along the Rio Grande whose property is needed for the wall are fighting the government in court, with new lawsuits filed “all the time,” said Ricky Garza, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project. Legal challenges by landowners who objected when the Bush administration tried to build a border wall have dragged on for over a decade. As of earlier this year, there were more than 60 Bush-era cases involving landowners still pending, Garza said.
Donna, a town of nearly 17,000 with a median household income of $30,000, was where Army soldiers set up a base camp last year during Trump’s troop deployment to the border. The mayor, Rick Morales, said he had no problem with the construction work.
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