Texans chip away at Donald Trump’s Mexican wall

Texans chip away at Donald Trump’s Mexican wall



Above the Texan town of Los Ebanos, on the border with Mexico, a white Zeppelin-shaped balloon hangs permanently in the sky.
Rosa Garza, 62, points at it from her porch. “Building a wall is a waste of money,” she said. “What we need is more of these aerial devices, sensors and drones up and down the valley. When something happens they usually pick it up; the border police come in fast.
“Lots of people used to come over, but you don’t see many illegal immigrants crossing now. It has dropped drastically since they put the drones up.”
Building a “big beautiful wall” — paid for by Mexico — was the signature promise of Donald Trump’s victorious US presidential campaign. But as tomorrow’s revised deadline for contractors to put in their bids approaches, questions over funding and logistical obstacles multiply. As Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke admitted last week, the 3200km project would be “complex in some areas”.
Los Ebanos lies on the banks of the Rio Grande, along a stretch of land designated by the Trump administration as first in line for fortification. It is a sleepy, ramshackle town known for its river crossing, the last hand-operated ferry over the Rio Grande. The ferry harks back to a time when rustlers herded cattle across the river. During Prohibition, it was known as “Smugglers Crossing”.
Everybody in Los Ebanos speaks Spanish, and nobody seems to care much whether they are viewed as Mexican or American. This is border country.
But their new President cares about them — or more specifically their land. Some of the local landowners with cattle-grazing property along the riverfront have received purchase offers from the Department of Homeland Security, with prices that have enraged them. Those who refuse face having their property seized.
“They’re offering people a pittance,” said Garza, whose house abuts a parcel of contested land.
Aleida Flores-Garcia, the land’s owner, is gearing up for a fight against the federal government. Her family has owned the picturesque La Paloma farm, which runs down to the river, since the 1800s.
Eleven years ago, Flores-Garcia fought and won a legal battle to prevent the George W. Bush government from seizing half the 12ha property for $US18,000. Now she and her cousin Yvette Salinas have received new letters, and the family is again talking to lawyers.
Garza backs her neighbours. “The land has been in the family for generations,” she said. Nor does she believe a wall, however tall, will stop the flow of people across the border. “If they build this wall, the Mexican symbol will become the ladder. Because they’re going to cross over it. They’re going to find a way.”
Similar battles over land are likely to be repeated along the wall’s proposed route. In Brownsville, 100km downriver, a proposed extension to the wall cuts across River Bend golf club. This would leave 15 of the resort’s holes in no-man’s land between the wall and the Rio Grande, which not only marks the border with Mexico but also helps water the greens.
“Are we going to have to show our passports to play golf?” said Jeremy Barnard, the club’s general manager.
Trump’s budget proposals included 20 extra Justice Department officials to be hired to deal with land acquisition.
Estimates of the cost of the wall, which could be up to 10m high, vary from $US20 billion ($26bn) to just under $US67bn, the latest figure put forward by opposition Democrats.
How that money will be raised remains unclear. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has said repeatedly he will not pay — prompting Mr Trump to say “we’ll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico”.
In his budget proposals Mr Trump has asked for $US1bn of initial funding to cover 100km of construction and improvements to barriers.
But even obtaining that may prove tricky: Democrats have vowed to block any bill that includes money for the wall, which means they could force a government shutdown if Republicans attach it to the emergency spending measure that needs to be approved by April 28.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said last week that the wall appropriation would be dropped to avert a shutdown, leaving the project’s funding to be discussed later.
Despite the political infighting in Washington, down in border country there is plenty of enthusiasm among about 600 contractors who are submitting bids to build the wall.
Among them is Rod Hadrian, a veteran Californian builder, who has entered a proposal involving a wire and foam construction that he claims will halve the estimated cost.
Mr Hadrian has not been discouraged by the recent backlash that has seen Californian cities such as Berkeley “divest” from the project by adopting resolutions to cut ties with companies that are involved in funding, designing or building the wall.
His hope is that the illustrious wall-building associations of his surname might win him the bid. “What a name, huh? Hadrian’s wall. You’d think they’d read that and at least talk to me.”
But even Mr Hadrian is not convinced Mr Trump will succeed in building the kind of wall with which he enthused supporters during his campaign. “There’s no way in hell he builds this wall for 2000 miles (3200km),” he said.
“If you drive along the border from San Diego, the terrain is like the moon.
“They’ll do a 50- or 100-mile stretch here and there. And God knows what they will do with the rest.”