A story today about a tunnel found near San Diego.
Saw meets steel wall
A story about what happens when a border wall prototype was tested with a steel saw.
Intelligencer Border wall spending a possibility for corruption?
The figured being suggested for border wall funding are large.
Corruption has been found in some of the past border wall building efforts.
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The Texas Tribune Some have gone so far as to question whether Trump or Trump cronys might personally profit.
Salon Certainly an area to keep an eye out, even among some of the recent companies involved with border wall prototypes.
Project On Government Oversight Border tunnel found near Nogales, AZ
Another drug tunnel was recently found near Nogales.
Will Hurd on the border wall
There are nine congressional districts along the US/Mexico border. All of them have representatives who oppose a border wall from sea to sea. Many of them are willing to discuss notions of ‘border security’ but are careful to point out that the wall is not border security.
Will Hurd is interesting as the only Republican of the nine as well as the representative that has the longest stretch of border. His district also has some of the most remote and desolate places. The article below describes reasons behind his views including impacts on local communities and overall effectiveness.
Texas Monthly This is now a new-found view for Hurd. He even won a close election in his district in 2018 while defending this view.
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Go Fund Me for ladders
There is a gofundme campaign to raise money for ladders to get over the wall.
The effort is somewhat tongue in cheek and also a reaction to the separate gofundme that was supposed to raise money for the wall.
That particular effort recently announced it was refunding all the money. You can read their rationale below, though it is curious how realistic they were at the outset.
It was also later pointed out this was a good way of harvesting email contact information.
Business Insider Where does illegal immigration mostly occur
Recent NPR program
NPR.org this references data that was published last year from the Department of Homeland Security.
Secure Fence Act of 2006, what happened?
Remember the Secure Fence Act of 2006. If you read the text
it is pretty specific about having the DHS work towards at least two layers of fencing all the way from 15 miles before Laredo to the Brownsville port of entry.
However, as one travels the border in that area, not only is the area incomplete but one really doesn’t see border fencing.
What happened? An important clue comes from the following year as this article explains:
CNSNews.com This was modified the following year by an amendment added to the 2007 appropriations bill. The sponsor was TX Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and co-sponsored by all the other senators of states along the Mexico border (TX, NM, AZ, CA), five Republicans and three Democrats in total.
The amendment gave DHS much more leeway on how the border might be secured and also said DHS needed to consult with local communities along the border.
A good example of how if you don’t have local support, something that looks attractive on TV may not really happen the way you expect.
Eminent Domain – Kelo vs. New London, what happened?
Building a border wall will likely involve taking private land, potentially a lot of land. When the landowners don’t want to sell, the government can invoke eminent domain.
The following site provides background of what happened in one such famous case of Kelo vs. New London. The outcome of that case also strengthened a backlash and potentially eminent domain laws in the US.
Institute for Justice What about a steel wall?
As the deadlock over the border wall continues, President Trump has suggested building the wall from steel instead of concrete as a “compromise”.
It is unclear that this particularly alters the politics
Fox News or necessarily the engineering parameters
KVEO-TV so from a political perspective this doesn’t look like it changes much.
One person who might benefit however, is Roman Abramovich. Abramovich is a Russian Oligarch who had his assets frozen not long ago
However, he still has controlling interests in steel companies in both the US and Canada and has benefited from past decisions such as the Keystone XL pipeline.
Crooks and Liars