Likely an stupid question but why no projected wall from just past El Paso to just past Laredo?
That’s several hundred miles with no wall.
“why no projected wall from just past El Paso to just past Laredo?”
Pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order 13767, January 25, 2017, DHS developed a comprehensive plan to achieve full operational control of the Southern Border. That plan calls for $25 billion over five years, to build about 1,100 miles of barrier, create thousands of new full time positions, and for several technology programs.
Full details of the plan are not publicly available (classified), but it includes a painstaking prioritization of each segment of the border barrier to be constructed. We don’t find out officially what the priorities are, until they announce that a particular segment is being funded (as money becomes available).
So far, out of the 529 miles that have been announced, 52 miles will be in the area of your interest. Those 52 will run North from the Laredo Colombia Port of Entry, and will be funded with the Military Construction money under the emergency declaration. This was just announced this month, and has not yet been contracted.
Traditionally, the three corridors of heaviest illegal traffic are the Rio Grande Valley, San Diego and Yuma. All of them, and more, are getting built out of existing funding.
In addition to raw numbers for traffic, they also have Intelligence on the cartels facing the various sectors of the border, and work to address those threats.
So it just turns out that the area you are looking at was not among the very highest priorities, for the first dollars - but we likely have another 600 miles or so left to hear about.
I anticipate that Congress will appropriate the $1.4 billion in the ten year baseline budget for 2020, and think it likely to go for the Laredo sector - the biggest city left on the border without significant barrier, likely to receive the shifting traffic from the Rio Grande Valley as it gets buttoned up next year, and a cartel hotbed (including Los Zetas).
Beyond that, I think we can anticipate the Trump Administration continuing to be resourceful, in finding more resources. They are requesting a total of $8.6 billion for 2020 ($5 billion in direct appropriation through DHS). That much money would put them in the ballpark for contracting all the rest of the barrier in the Comprehensive Plan.
I anticipate that if they get full funding, we would likely see basically continuous barrier from Falcon Lake, South of Laredo, to Box Canyon/Amistad Reservoir, North of Del Rio; as well as another long stretch running South from El Paso.
Beyond the barrier deployment though, we also have technology deployment (like the old “Virtual Wall” concept). Every mile of the border needs to be constantly monitored, whether there is barrier or not. Just as the Barrier Program is just hitting full scale deployment this year, so are the technology programs.
Pretty much everywhere you see new barrier, there is new technology as well. But technology will be expanding faster than barrier, covering areas beyond the barriers.
The plan is that every mile will be monitored, with tracking/intercept capability adequate to prevent intruders from being able to get away (”disappear” is the term the use). So that is intended for every mile.