Yuma Border Fence Upgrade Begins Immediately as DHS Waives Environmental, Other Laws, Report Says
FTA:
Construction workers have started taking down old corrugated steel border fencing near Yuma, Arizona, to make way for a 30-foot steel bollard fence, on the same day that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) waived a variety of environmental, natural resource, and land management laws to allow for the construction.
The work is part of a $324 million contract to Barnard Construction Co. of Bozeman, Montana, to replace 32 miles of border fencing in Arizona, The Arizona Republic reported.
Border Patrol’s Yuma sector covers 126 miles of border between the Yuma-Pima County line in Arizona and the Imperial Sand Dunes in California. It has seen the number of people caught after crossing the border illegally more than doubling in the first half of fiscal 2019, compared with the same period a year earlier.
Along the border, the Trump administration already has built or replaced 82 miles of fencing, Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers, said April 5.
Another 97 miles will be completed by the end of 2019 and another 277 miles roughly by the end of 2020, he said.
With a total of over 450 miles of new steel bollard fence, Trump will be close to his target of 500-550 miles of border wall.
Excellent news on the border wall.
The WALL is going up now let’s change some laws.
Great news!
The old border fencing may as well have been paint on the ground that marked the boundary. It was useless and ugly.