Trump Administration Planning to Build 450 Miles of Border Wall by 2020, Starting in Arizona

Professor says 'contractors are building pretty fast'

A new section of steel bollard wall near San Luis, Arizona, in a file photo. CPB

Construction started along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona as a small crew works to put up a towering, 30-foot-tall border wall, according to The Associated Press.

The construction started just south of Yuma, and the Trump administration is still planning to complete 450 miles by the end of 2020.

President Donald Trump and his administration said they are planning to build between 450 and 500 miles of wall along the 2,000-mile border in that time frame.

Two other Department of Defense-funded construction projects in New Mexico and Arizona are now underway, AP reported, which noted that there have been “last-minute construction hiccups” as well as legal challenges and funding problems.

A portion of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border seen from Chihuahua State in Mexico (L), some 60 miles from the city of Ciudad Juarez, on Aug. 28, 2019. Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images

Border Patrol said that the Yuma sector is the third-busiest along the southern border.

“Historically this has been a huge crossing point for both vehicles as well as family units and unaccompanied alien children during the crisis that we’ve seen in the past couple of months,” Border Patrol spokesman Jose Garibay told the news agency. “They’ve just been pouring over the border due to the fact that we’ve only ever had vehicle bollards and barriers that by design only stop vehicles.”

The massive border fence erected by the United States to deter illegal immigration is replaced by a vehicle barrier where it ends near Sasabe, Arizona, on June 1, 2010. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Various forms of barriers exist along 654 miles—or about a third—of the border.

Meanwhile, Victor Manjarrez Jr., a former Border Patrol chief who is now teaching at the University of Texas, said that new, taller border fencing is needed in some areas. He said that shorter fencing is needed in other areas.

“One form doesn’t fit in all areas, and so the fence itself is not the one solution. It’s a combination of many things,” Manjarrez said.

Manjarrez noted that “as it stands now, contractors are building pretty fast.”

Several weeks ago, the Border Patrol posted a video showing the construction in San Luis, Arizona, located in the Yuma sector.

So far, more than 60 miles have been constructed “along the SW border since 2017,” the Border Patrol wrote on Twitter in late August.

As reported by Arizona station KOLD 13, work on more border wall sections has started in Arizona and New Mexico. The work on the wall, which was a campaign promise from President Donald Trump, stretches 46 miles west of Santa Teresa, New Mexico, and also is on 2 miles of the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona.