“What do you see as the layout along the Rio Grande?”
That is tough terrain for sure. The feasible approach is to build barriers on the US bank of the river, as they do at the major existing border crossings in Texas, like McAllen.
Even a relatively small exclusion area, like a 30’ barrier with a fenced single lane road on both sides (50 feet total), could be instrumented with sensors and cameras, and provide a daunting obstacle - especially with the river itself impeding any vehicle from Mexico approaching the barrier.
Ranchers, farmers and municipalities need access to the river water, which can be piped as a mitigation - but recreational use would likely be curtailed in areas, or go through border control points. Local security/crime rates will likely see a major improvement in the urban areas.
San Diego experienced a major turnaround of its border areas after the fence was installed. Previously slummy crime-ridden areas near the border cleaned up and now are expensive real estate.
The Rio Grande Valley is part of Phase one of the wall plan, so we will likely see the Government view of the layout starting in 2018.
Thanks for your thoughts.
It will be a different set of problems for sure. This may push more crossings into
the major lake areas. The Rio Grande canyon areas can be left to the end of the projects.
The next question revolves around what to do with the illegals from the far East and Asia.
From what I understand they are as large of a group on a yearly basis as those crossing
the southern border or maybe larger.