“In December 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott traveled to South Texas to inaugurate the primary 880-foot stretch of the state’s newly constructed wall on its border with Mexico. On the press convention, with cameras zoomed tightly on him in opposition to a backdrop of the three-story excessive, slatted wall in Starr County, the Republican governor declared the barrier to be impenetrable. He banged a mallet on a steel beam to drive dwelling his level. “It’s heavy and it’s large,” he mentioned assuredly. “Individuals aren’t making it via these metal bars.” Three years and $3.1 billion later, Abbott could also be proper. Migrants and smugglers aren’t breaching the bars. They don’t should, as a result of they’ll stroll round them. At the moment, that accomplished phase, now 2 miles large, is an island of steel and concrete surrounded by farmland — hardly an impediment for migrants who’ve traveled generally hundreds of miles to achieve the USA. An investigation by The Texas Tribune has recognized for the primary time the place Texas has constructed its border wall, data the state retains secret because it pours billions into the extremely touted infrastructure challenge. It has revealed that the unprecedented foray into what has traditionally been a federal duty — Texas is the primary state to construct its personal border wall — has up to now yielded little return on billions of {dollars} invested.”
