Free Republic

... Carlos Pitones ... told CNN that the sections that gave way had recently been set in a new concrete foundation in Calexico, California. The concrete had not yet cured, according to Pitones, and the wall panels were unable to withstand the windy conditions. The National Weather Service reports that winds in the area gusted as high as 37 miles per hour Wednesday. Video from CNN affiliate KYMA shows the metal panels leaning against trees adjacent to a Mexicali, Mexico, street as the wind whips up dirt from the construction site on the other side of the border. The CBP...

As a pulmonologist in Seattle, near where the first case of the new coronavirus was confirmed in the United States last week, I relied heavily on the city’s hospitals, clinics and departments of health to protect our community. And they did so admirably, immediately acting decisively and shrewdly despite the fear and uncertainty that always arises with an invisible biological threat. My colleagues and I working on the front lines of our health care system have come to expect this emergency response to be activated rapidly and effectively whenever a new health threat arises. Yet our Homeland Security agenda doesn’t...

Like Laredo City Council last week, Webb County Commissioners Court on Monday will be approached by the federal government as they attempt to fast-track construction of President Trump’s border wall... Government officials told the city that Congress’ recent $1.3 billion appropriation for the border wall has funded 52 miles of barrier in Webb County and 18 miles in Zapata County, which is essentially the span from the Colombia Solidarity Bridge to San Ygnacio. They have been granted the right of entry by about 40% of the affected landowners they have reached out to in the Laredo area, said Paul Enriquez,...

▫️ 110 miles completed ▫️ 192 miles under construction ▫️ 274 miles in pre-construction

TACUN UMAN, Guatemala – Chanting “Hon-dur-as! Hon-dur-as! Hon-dur-as!” hundreds of migrants from the first U.S.-bound caravan of 2020 last week showed up at the Puente Rodolfo Robles International bridge in this violent smuggler’s town on Guatemala’s northwestern border with Mexico, always a symbolic turnstile to the American goal line. Mexican officials on the other side had let the hundreds of caravan migrants stacking up here by the hour know they would be allowed to cross in the morning. But visible excitement went negative, then dissipated into disbelief, as I explained to a dozen young male migrants surrounding me of the...

President Donald Trump has done it again. He just keeps winning. He just keeps proving the Trump Doctrine works magnificently. Don't look now, but Trump has even built his wall -- and Mexico is paying for it. More on that later. First, I want to explain how and why Trump is winning like no president in history. Even UFC legend Conor McGregor just called President Trump the GOAT -- as in "the greatest of all time." It's all because of the Trump Doctrine, a mixture of Trump's unique business acumen and negotiating skills. No other politician in the world...

MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is facing a barrage of criticism at home that he is doing U.S. President Donald Trump’s bidding after erecting a “wall” of security forces near the Guatemala border to keep out Central Americans. Mexico has bowed to demands from Trump, under the threat of punitive tariffs, to contain mass movements of migrants, most of them from Central America, who have been crossing through Mexico on their way to the U.S. border. Lopez Obrador was questioned at his daily morning news conference for a second day in a row about how the...

Whether by accident or by deliberate osmosis, Israel and the U.S. have adopted similar solutions to their existential problems. Before 2002, during the various Palestinian intifadas, Israel suffered hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries from suicide bombers freely crossing from the West Bank and Gaza into Israel. In response, Israel planned a vast border barrier. The international community was outraged. The Israeli left called the idea nothing short of "apartheid." However, after the completion of the 440-mile border barrier -- part concrete well, part wire fencing -- suicide bombings and terrorist incursions into Israel declined to almost nil....

Thirty years after celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe has gone on a wall-building spree. In its next budget cycle (2021-27), the EU plans to spend €34.9bn ($38.4bn) on border security, to help manage the tens of thousands of migrants trying to enter the region every year. As a result, business is booming for Europe’s border security industry. A 2019 report by the Transnational Institute has revealed that a small cohort of European arms companies profit handsomely from the huge growth in the EU’s border budgets. These large companies are increasingly influential in shaping EU policy and encouraging...

106 miles completed, 128 miles under construction, 342 miles in pre-construction. (as of Friday, 17 Jan, 2020)

Not that you’d generally be able to tell by watching CNN or MSNBC, but there’s actually been quite a bit of good news lately. And it’s not just retail sales, Wall Street and historic low unemployment. In a surprising reversal of recent trends, the number of illegal border crossings observed in Arizona this winter is down. And I mean way down. We’re talking a reduction of more than 90 percent over the previous year during the same period. (Associated Press) Illegal crossings plummeted across the border after the Trump administration made more asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in...

For his 50th birthday on Sunday, Tommy Fisher got his ultimate wish: His construction crews began building in earnest three miles of border wall on private property in South Texas... “Once you galvanize and put that zinc coating on regular steel, it will bond for 100 to 125 years. And we paved the concrete road, so there’s no dust if you’re driving. So that’s why we like to call our whole system a ‘no rust, no dust’ solution to border security,” Fisher said. Most importantly, Fisher says, building the wall so close to the river creates an immediate barrier to...

<p>DONALD JOHN TRUMP Coalition forms to back Trump rollback of major environmental law Canadian CEO blasts Trump over downed plane in Iran: 'I am livid' Business groups worry they won't see a Phase 2 Trump-China trade deal MORE plans to divert $7.2 billion from the Pentagon to go toward border wall construction this year, an amount five times greater than what Congress authorized in the budget, the Washington Post reported.</p>

Border wall construction for a privately funded barrier is underway in Mission. Ground was broken Sunday after a legal fight partially ended. A McAllen federal judge cited with the defendants to allow construction to get started.

About 1 mile of a planned 3-mile section of new border wall has already gone up near the town of Fronton in western Starr County, Texas. This is only the second government project in South Texas that has metal bollards already erected, and this site is significantly further along than the one south of Donna in Hidalgo County. (Construction of a privately funded border wall on private property next to the Rio Grande also is underway south of Mission, Texas.) Both government projects were started two months ago, but U.S. Border Patrol agents said that unlike the Donna project, this...

The Trump administration on Friday marked the 100th mile of wall construction along the southern border -- describing it as a “milestone achievement” and promising that there are many more miles to come by the end of the year. “Today is a milestone that has been reached and a celebration is in order,” Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said in front of wall in Yuma, Arizona... President Trump tweeted: "Entire Wall is under construction or getting ready to start!"

A federal judge (U.S. District Judge Randy Crane) lifted a temporary restraining order against a project to build a privately funded border wall next to the Rio Grande... Tommy Fisher, owner of Fisher Sand & Gravel, a North Dakota-based construction firm, had been waiting for the chance to prove he can build President Trump’s signature border wall faster and better than the government... Fisher has said his crews could start work as soon as Sunday and finish in eight days. Fisher has argued the government was being overly cautious by building walls far away from the river. His crews plan...

Brian Kolfage ‏ Brian Kolfage 43 minutes ago More WE WIN! The Federal Judge lifted the TRO. We can Build in the Floodplain, this will change the game. The judge absolutely annihilated @NatButterflies @nababuterfly @mtwrighter and the IBWC. WALL GOING UP! WE WILL SAVE TEXAS! @WeBuildtheWall @DonaldJTrumpJr @charliekirk11

In a welcome victory for border security advocates, a federal appeals court agreed to lift an injunction that was blocking the Trump administration from tapping military construction funds to build a wall.The 5th Circuit Court, based in New Orleans, ruled 2-1 that wall construction could proceed while the appeal was heard. And the two Republican judges may have put a nail in the coffin of the groups opposing the issue by questioning whether they even had standing to sue in the first place. There are challenges in several circuits to Trump's declaration of a national emergency last year and...

Trump administration officials will announce Friday that they have completed construction on 100 miles of new barriers along the southern border with Mexico. Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf will announce the completed construction in Yuma, Ariz., The Washington Post reported. He will be joined by senior border officials and Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.). The announcement will come just days after a federal appeals court in New Orleans lifted an injunction from a lower court that had blocked the Trump administration from using military funds to help build the border wall. The Wednesday decision will allow...