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Trump's border wall is forcing traffickers out to sea, so how again is it that it was not supposed to work?

The acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security plans to visit McAllen on Thursday to "celebrate the historic completion of 400 miles of new border wall system under the Trump Administration," according to a news release from Border Patrol. Acting Secretary Chad F. Wolf plans to hold a news conference with Mark Morgan, the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Rodney Scott, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol; and Brian Hastings, the chief patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley Sector. The news conference will take place at 10 a.m. Thursday (29 Oct).

YUMA — Dozens of construction workers labor like a bustling colony of ants — only this colony is located along a 126-mile-long portion of the United States's southern border with Mexico. Standing 100 feet from one of these construction sites, watching workers install the concrete-filled steel beams into the ground feels painfully slow, but driving along the banks of the river and canal, the workers' years of labor is overwhelmingly evident and compelling. The wall is up, everywhere. Workers decked in orange vests operate the yellow construction machines in a robotic fashion as they drop the maroon pieces of steel...

Lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated by the Trump administration say that they have yet to track down the parents of 545 children and that about two-thirds of those parents were deported to Central America without their children, according to a filing Tuesday from the American Civil Liberties Union. The Trump administration instituted a "zero tolerance" policy in 2018 that separated migrant children and parents at the southern U.S. border. The administration later confirmed that it had actually begun separating families in 2017 along some parts of the border under a pilot program....

Check out the wall in El Paso, Texas https://youtu.be/j7YNSbz2LEI 

"Wow" was all I was able to say as the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Blackhawk flew alongside the U.S.-Mexico border and the difference between the old "wall" system and the new wall system under construction came into view... The old "wall" that covers large lengths of the border is laughably easy to get over. It consists of barbed wire fencing, held together by fragile-looking wooden posts and Normandy barriers intended to stop illegal vehicle crossings. "I think you can see for yourself...it's a political narrative, right? They want to score some political points by saying, 'Oh, it's just...

The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear a challenge to the Trump administration's use of Pentagon money to build the southern border wall and also its appeal of a ruling that blocked a policy sending asylum applicants to Mexico while they wait for their appeals to be heard. A federal appeals court ruled in June that the government improperly diverted $2.5 billion of Pentagon counterdrug program money to build more than 100 miles of border wall... The Supreme Court will hear the case early next year, with a decision by the spring. But if Joe Biden wins the...

When filmmaker Namrata Singh Gujral set off to make the documentary, “America’s Forgotten,” in the early summer of 2019, she thought she would be bringing to life a remarkably different film pertaining to the trials and tribulations of those trying to unlawfully cross the U.S. border. “I started reading stories of tragedy, of families trying to cross the Rio Grande, and it really resonated with me. I wanted to show their persecution. I bled and bought the narrative that the media and my party, the Democrats, had sold me,” Gujral told Fox News. “But then when I started making this,...

The head of a Texas butterfly sanctuary says she and her family are being harassed by the U.S. Border Patrol for flipping off a boat full of agents... Marianna Treviño-Wright told The Daily Beast that she and her son have been pulled over by the Border Patrol with increasing frequency. She says her husband has been stopped unnecessarily while boating, and claims that both she, her son, and her husband have been “nearly run off the road” recently by speeding Border Patrol agents. Agents often use their official cars to block access to her property and lock and unlock her...

Contractors who are replacing the border wall in Arizona are dumping leftover debris in Mexico, where scrap metal dealers are profiting off the pieces, witnesses told local television stations KOB4 and CBS 5. The witnesses — an ecologist who works in the desert region in Southern Arizona and people selling the metal online — told CBS 5 that the contractors are essentially giving away the old wall. "There were DHS and Army Corps of Engineers officials, standing there watching their contractors with a bulldozer and front-end loaders push the scrap metal onto the Mexican side," Gary Nabhan, a desert ecologist,...

The National Park Service cited public safety concerns for its decision this week to prohibit access to a sacred Tohono O’odham site, a move that comes amid rising tensions between border wall protestors and federal agents. Park service officials said the decision to shut down roads to the Quitobaquito Springs, posted Monday on a website for nearby Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, was made at the request of Customs and Border Protection, and referred questions to the border agency... The order comes a week after protestors and federal agents clashed during a demonstration at the site of border wall construction...

Two construction contracts valued at nearly half a billion dollars have been awarded to build 40 new miles of border wall in the South Texas city of Laredo, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials announced Wednesday. A $201 million contract for a 13-mile section of border wall to be built in Laredo was awarded to Southwest Valley Constructors Company, CBP and U.S. Army Corps of Engineer officials said. The other contract, worth $283 million for a 27-mile long stretch of a new border wall and the accompanying infrastructure system, was awarded to Fisher Sand & Gravel Company. Construction is scheduled...

On 17 September, Mexican authorities said they were checking vehicles coming into Mexico when a car with Arizona plates tried to avoid the checkpoint. The car crashed into another vehicle. The authorities said they found 13,000 rounds of ammunition in the trunk. I do not recommend running from the Mexican authorities. Their rules of engagement are different. They will shoot if they are able to do so. From kvoa.com: MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government says it has caught a U.S. citizen trying to smuggling 13,000 rounds of ammunition at a border crossing in Nogales, across the border from...

PHOENIX — A Border Patrol agent shot and killed a suspect after officials said the agent was stabbed multiple times in southern Arizona on Monday night. Roy Villareal, the head of the U.S. Border Patrol in southern Arizona, said in a tweet that the unnamed agent was "attacked and stabbed multiple times while on patrol near Nogales." The statement within the tweet said the agent was patrolling on foot east of Nogales around 7 p.m. when they tried to arrest a group of people who the agent suspected were there illegally. That's when the agent was allegedly "stabbed multiple times...

Law enforcement officials reportedly informed the Associated Press on Sunday of an arrest related to the ricin poison sent to the White House. An as-yet-unidentified woman was arrested at the Canada border on Sunday, three law enforcement officials told the Associated Press. The woman is suspected to be the sender of a letter intercepted on its way to the White House containing the deadly poison, ricin. The letter was addressed to President Donald Trump. The woman was reportedly arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Peace Bridge border crossing near Buffalo. The letter itself is believed to...

The Rio Grande Valley will soon have more than 100 miles of new border wall in various cities. The second highest ranking Border Patrol agent in the country visited the RGV to see the progress on border wall construction and tour with local agents... Ortiz is no stranger to the RGV, previously being stationed in the valley for five and a half years, serving as the Deputy Chief for the sector. “This was a very problematic area here for me when I was the Deputy Chief down here and I can already tell you we’ve seen a dramatic drop in...

In fiscal year 2019, the Office of Field Operations seized some 68,585 points of meth nationwide, compared to 118,153 pounds so far this year...since the borders have remained closed to only essential travel because of the coronavirus pandemic, officers said it’s forcing criminals to use other routes and methods of concealment.

Here’s what we know for sure about the current state of health of the tiny tyrant of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. He’s either perfectly fine, suffering from complications of a botched heart operation, in a coma, or dead. At the moment you can think of him as Schrodinger’s Dictator. But regardless of who is actually in charge in the hermit kingdom currently, somebody is issuing some significantly aggressive and adversarial orders this week. The Daily Mail reports that North Korean soldiers have been ordered to “shoot on sight” anyone seen within a half-mile of the country’s border with China....

A judge in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled yesterday that Customs and Border Protection agents were not qualified to perform screenings for asylum applicants arriving at the U.S. and Mexico border. While this may not have a lot of impact in the short term, it could end up reversing some of the White House’s initiatives in controlling migration once the traffic across the border returns to normal... The Trump administration argued that designated CBP employees are trained comparably to asylum officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, another agency within the Homeland Security Department....

While contractors build a 30-foot-tall steel border wall southeast of Tucson, wildlife advocates are racing to document where animals cross the border most often and hoping federal officials will consider taking down sections of wall that block those corridors... To identify the corridors most used by wildlife, the Wildlands Network in January set up scores of motion-activated wildlife cameras in the San Bernardino Valley in southeastern Cochise County, where contractors already built some 15 miles of new wall. Meanwhile, the Sky Island Alliance is running a similar camera project east of Nogales in the San Rafael Valley and the nearby...