05 | June | 2011 | SOUTHWEST PHOTO JOURNAL

ROCKIN and ROLLIN in NOGALES BORDER PATROL HOPES NEW WALL ALLOWS AGENTS TO END ATTACKS

HOMELAND SECURITY IS WORKING TOWARD GREATER TRANSPARENCY
ALONG THE NOGALES BORDER WALL

Homeland Security Agents seek greater protection from Border Bandits

A $12 Million project to replace nearly 3 miles of fencing running through Nogales between the American State of Arizona and the Mexican State of Sonora will allow Border Patrol Agents to see who is attacking them and from where. Pelting Homeland Security Trucks with Rocks has become a strategy used to get agents to move on so someone or something can move across the border. Agents fearing for their lives and their vehicles have been armored over with grating capable of protecting the agent and his vehicle, they have firing ports that allow the agent to return fire when a life is endangered. The new fence will allow the now-armored agents to find their attackers and marginalize their impact, calling in backup.
Meanwhile, the new wall project which began in March, on both ends of the city-working inward-is scheduled to be completed in mid-July by Granite Construction who received the bid. Granite in working with the U.S. Corps of Engineers who has hired security contractors armed with less than lethal pepperball guns to provide protection for Granite employees and their equipment. Meanwhile, the projects runs through the two country city of Nogales, so both Nogales Sonora and Nogales Arizona have police on the scene providing international security and early Wednesday morning the Sonora Police stopped everything while they powwowed with their Arizona counterparts and various representatives from the Corp of Engineers and the Border Patrol.
The metal is dropped across the border by a front loader and pickup trucks, stop and load it up and quickly clears the right of way.

Apparently Mexicans were attaching chains to the fence and pulling away mesh which they were selling as scrap metal and they were working ahead of the destruction on the US side and Sonora wanted to know if Arizona was aware of this situation. Apparently they were, Mexico appears to have gotten the bid to recycle the Border Wall, the wall which US citizens paid between $400,000 to $4.5M a mile and averages $2.8M is being scrapped in Mexico. If the initial costs is not metal, what else could it be?, erection?, oops, construction costs?) Because the new wall extends 8′-10′ beneath the surface officals hope this will serve as a deterrent to tunneling beneath the wall in the downtown Nogales area. The Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector has 71 miles of pedestrian fence, up from 11 miles in 2000. There is 183 miles of vehicle barriers, up from two miles in 2000. The Border Patrol hopes to replace sections of the old landing-mat fence in Douglas and Naco, AZ. The old landing-mat fences were erected in mostly urban stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border during the mid-1990s by Border Patrol agents using surplus government materials. The new fence has been erected with new materials by construction companies paid millions by the federal government. The US spent $2.4 billion on 264 miles of pedestrian fencing and 226 miles of vehicle barriers between 2004-2009. At $4.14 million per mile, the Nogales fence-replacement project will cost an estimated $6.5 billion to deploy, operate and maintain the fence over its estimated 20 year life.

Old Fence shows years of patching
In 1907, President Roosevelt set apart as a public reservation all public lands within 60-feet of the international boundary between the United States and Mexico within the State of California and the Territories of Arizona and New Mexico. Known as the “Roosevelt Reservation,” this land withdrawal was found necessary for the public welfare as a protection against the smuggling of goods. NEW YORK TIMES BORDER TOPIC PAGE CLICK HERE