EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — U.S. government plans to build 36 miles of new walls along the Southwest border, including a secondary barrier in one of the busiest corridors for migrant smuggling.
According to a news release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued three waivers for environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, to expedite border wall and road construction in Arizona and New Mexico.
CBP said the waivers minimize the risk of administrative delays.
“These projects will close critical gaps in the border wall and enhance border security operations in the U.S. Border Patrol’s El Paso, Tucson and Yuma Sectors,” said CBP, adding that the projects are funded through the agency’s Fiscal Year 2020 and 2021 appropriations.
According to NewsNation, the El Paso Sector, which includes New Mexico’s entire border with Mexico, continues to lead to the nation in border arrests.
CBP data shows that in April, Border Patrol agents encountered 8,383 people between ports of entry along the Southwest border, and the El Paso Sector accounted for 1,959 of those. Still, border arrests are dramatically lower than the previous fiscal year and at the lowest in decades; Border Patrol agents encountered close to 129,000 migrants last April.
Border Patrol officials have told Border Report that most of those migrants are currently entering through the New Mexico desert west of El Paso. Agents who patrol towns like Sunland Park and areas like Santa Teresa have seen the most activity in recent months.
Border Report reached out to the El Paso Sector to ask how border agents will utilize a secondary barrier and if construction will affect their work and is awaiting a response.
Parts of the San Diego Sector have a primary and secondary walls. During the migrant surges of recent years, many migrants gathered between both barriers and waited — sometimes several days — to be picked up by border agents.
In addition to 7 miles of secondary border wall in Santa Teresa, other projects include:
- El Paso Sector: 16-4 Wall Project Anapra (1.3 miles)
- El Paso Sector: 2 Wall Project & Port of Entry Gate (0.2 mile and 40 feet)
- Yuma Sector: Barry M. Goldwater Range Wall Project (7 gaps; 40-240 feet)
- Tucson Sonoita Project: (24.7 miles)
- Tucson 10-4 Project: (0.2 mile)
- Tucson 10-6 Project: (2.1 miles)
Environmental advocates have called the new projects “reckless.”
Laiken Jordahl, the Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, argued that long-standing laws are being waived while border crossings are at the lowest level in decades.
“Trump is recklessly casting aside the foundational laws that protect endangered species and clean air and water to build a wildlife-killing wall through pristine wilderness,” Jordahl said in a statement to Border Report. “Throwing taxpayer money away to wall off the Santa Cruz River and San Rafael Valley would be a death sentence for jaguars, ocelots and other wildlife in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands. … We’ll fight this disastrous project with everything we’ve got.”
The Trump administration has also deployed thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and has given the Department of Defense control of hundreds of miles of federal land right along the border. Two 60-foot-wide areas have been designated are National Defense Areas in Arizona, New Mexico and part of Far West Texas. Migrants who enter the NDAs can face charges of trespassing onto military property.
Border Report correspondent Sandra Sanchez contributed to this report.
Read: Read More