A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) memo issued on the first day of the second Trump administration pushes for the expansion of a “smart border wall” along the southwest boundary.
According to a Jan. 20 memo obtained by The Epoch Times, a 12-mile section of smart border wall in San Diego has shown it can cut staffing requirements and improve security.
An analysis of that early barrier system indicates “the cost savings in personnel alone equated to an approximate $28 million return on investment each year for the life cycle of the system,” the memo says.
“Building a smart border wall system is critical for securing our southern border,” says the memo, signed by senior CBP official Pete Flores and sent to top CBP and U.S. Border Patrol officials.
“Effective immediately,” CBP will take actions to complete the border wall, “including all associated technology as quickly as possible,” it says.
The memo instructs CBP “to leverage the most expedited tool available” to secure access to required land, including leasing private property, and to deploy “all available temporary barriers as practical along the southwest border to prevent illegal entries.”
CBP will collaborate with Department of Defense personnel and any willing state authorities “to identify and deploy available capabilities to secure the borders of the United States and to expedite the construction and/or deployment of additional barriers as deemed appropriate by the Chief, U.S. Border Patrol and consistent with available funding,” the memo states.
Manny Bayon, National Border Patrol Council union president in the San Diego sector, told The Epoch Times that the 12-mile section of the smart border wall that was tested stretches from the Pacific Ocean at Imperial Beach to the Chula Vista area of San Diego County.
The directive calls for additional physical barriers to be placed in known gaps such as those at Otay Mountain and near border communities such as Jacumba and Boulevard on the eastern fringe of San Diego County.
The gap at Otay Mountain, some 15 miles southeast of downtown San Diego, is about the length of four football fields. It lies in steep, rugged terrain and is problematic and perilous for agents on patrol as well as for the thousands of illegal aliens that passed through this known illegal crossing site during the four years of the Biden administration, he said.
Border wall construction was halted under the previous administration, but now, efforts will be made to tighten those gaps, Bayon said.
He said morale among Border Patrol agents has surged since President Donald Trump was sworn in.
“Oh, it’s great,” Bayon said. “Before, we were just Wal-Mart greeters” welcoming illegal aliens to “come on in. Now. we have a president who is giving us the authority to do our job. It’s fantastic.”
Illegal border crossings have already plummeted since Trump was sworn in, he said.
“We were averaging about a thousand apprehensions a day. Now it has dropped down to like a hundred,” in the San Diego sector, he said.
