After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, creating an adult-size gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the top — their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling, according to engineers consulted by The Washington Post.
The taxpayer-funded barrier — so far coming with a $10 billion price tag — was a central theme of Trump’s 2016 campaign, and he has made the project a physical symbol of his presidency, touting its construction progress in speeches, ads and tweets. Trump has increasingly boasted to crowds in recent weeks about the superlative properties of the barrier, calling it “virtually impenetrable” and likening the structure to a “Rolls-Royce” that border crossers cannot get over, under or through.
The smuggling crews have been using other techniques, such as building makeshift ladders to scale the barriers, especially in the popular smuggling areas in the San Diego area, according to nearly a dozen U.S. agents and current and former administration officials.
Mexican criminal organizations, which generate billions of dollars in smuggling profits, have enormous incentive to adapt their operations at the border to new obstacles and enforcement methods, officials say.
ADThe U.S. government has not disclosed the cutting incidents and breaches, and it is unclear how many times they have occurred. U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to provide information about the number of breaches, the location of the incidents and the process for repairing them. Matt Leas, a spokesman for the agency, declined to comment, and CBP has not yet fulfilled a Freedom of Information Act request seeking data about the breaches and repairs. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the private contractors building the barrier, referred inquires to CBP.
One senior administration official, who was not authorized to discuss the breaches but spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they amounted to “a few instances” and that the new barrier fencing had “significantly increased security and deterrence” along sections of the border in CBP’s San Diego and El Centro sectors in California.
Current and former CBP officials confirmed that there have been cutting breaches, but they said the new bollard system remains far superior and more formidable than any previous design.
ADSome of the damage has happened in areas where construction crews have yet to complete the installation of electronic sensors that, once operational, will more quickly detect the vibrations that sawing produces on the bollards, the officials said. They also said one of the main advantages of the steel bollard system — which stands between 18 and 30 feet tall — is that damaged panels can be repaired or replaced easily.
Ronald Vitiello, the former U.S. Border Patrol chief who was acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement until his removal in April, characterized the breaches as “poking and prodding” by cartel smuggling crews.
“The cartels will continue to innovate, and they’re not just going to leave San Diego because the wall gets better,” Vitiello said. “That’s life on the border.
Vitiello, who helped oversee the development of barrier prototypes in 2017, said the administration could have added better deterrent features if Democrats in Congress had provided more funding.
“The bollards are not the most evolved design; they are the most evolved that we could pay for,” Vitiello said. “We never said they would be an end-all, be-all.”
In the San Diego area, smugglers have figured out how to cut the bollards and return them to their original positions, disguising the breaches in the hope that they will go unnoticed and can be reused for repeated passage. Agents said they have learned to drive along the base of the structure looking for subtle defects, testing the metal by kicking the bollards with their boots.
If damage is detected, welding crews are promptly sent to make fixes. The smugglers, however, have returned to the same bollards and cut through the welds, agents say, because the metal is softer and the concrete at the core of the bollard already has been compromised. The smugglers also have tried to trick agents by applying a type of putty with a color and texture that resembles a weld, making a severed bollard appear intact.
Agents in California and Texas said smuggling teams have been using improvised ladders to go up and over the barriers, despite the risk of injury or death from falling; the tallest barriers are approximately the height of a three-story building. Some of the smugglers deploy lightweight ladders made of rebar, using them to get past the “anti-climb panels” that span the top of the barrier.
Once the lead climber reaches the top, agents say, they use hooks to hang rope ladders down the other side.
The rebar ladders are popular because the metal support rods are inexpensive and are skinny enough to pass through the four-inch gaps between the bollards, making it possible for the smuggling teams to use them to scale the secondary row of fencing, according to agents. Rebar, easily purchased at hardware stores, typically is used within concrete as reinforcement.
ADTrump initially wanted to build a concrete wall along the length of the border but was talked out of it by Homeland Security officials who said the bollard system is a superior design because it allows agents to see through to the other side.
“Frankly, an all-concrete wall would have been a much less expensive wall to build,” Trump said in September during a visit to new sections of the barrier in San Diego. “But from the standpoint of Border Patrol, they were very much opposed to it.”
As he left the White House for Andrews Air Force Base en route to New York on Saturday, Trump was asked if he was concerned about smugglers cutting through the new wall.
“I haven’t heard that,” Trump said. “We have a very powerful wall. But no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything, in all fairness. But we have a lot of people watching. You know cutting, cutting is one thing, but it’s easily fixed. One of the reasons we did it the way we did it, it’s very easily fixed. You put the chunk back in.”
CBP officials also have consistently said that no single structure, regardless of its design, can seal the border on its own. Rather, they have advocated for a “border wall system” that combines physical barriers, surveillance technology and the rapid deployment of agents to stop border crossers and attempted breaches.
“There’s no one silver bullet, and we’ve done our best to try to explain that,” said Chris Harris, a retired Border Patrol agent in San Diego. “You’re always going to have to have boots on the ground. That’s why there are armed police officers at Fort Knox.”
Smugglers with reciprocating saws were able to cut through previous versions of the barrier in far less time, agents note, and the new bollard design makes the smugglers’ task significantly more difficult. Other Homeland Security officials note that the narrow gap created by a cut bollard permits only one person to pass through at a time, making it more difficult for large groups of migrants or smugglers to cross.
Because CBP is adding double-layer barriers in high-traffic areas such as San Diego, smugglers seek out locations where the distance between the primary and secondary fences is narrowest. A sawing crew will cut at a bollard while lookouts watch for U.S. agents, so the smuggling team can run back into Mexico if authorities arrive. Once the agents leave, the smugglers can resume their sawing in the same place.
“What happens any time some barrier is thrown up in front of a business is they adapt, and that’s all they’re trying to do,” said Joshua Wilson, a Border Patrol agent and union official in San Diego.
The San Diego area is one of the most lucrative for narcotics smugglers or those bringing in migrants, who are willing to pay thousands of dollars apiece to reach the United States. Mexican deportees with homes and jobs on the U.S. side of the border are among some of the best-paying customers because they often have assets and are desperate to return.
The Trump administration commissioned some border barrier prototypes in 2017, and among the tests CBP conducted were the structures’ resilience against breaching with reciprocating saws, according to federal contracting documents and testing reports. At the time, CBP agents said that no single design could be completely impenetrable, but the agency determined that steel bollards could not be cut easily without the use of “multiple power tools.”
San Diego broadcaster KPBS, which reported on the prototype tests in 2018, obtained heavily redacted copies of the test results through FOIA requests. The reports showed that all of the designs the Trump administration evaluated in 2017 were found to be vulnerable to breaching methods.
NBC News subsequently published images of steel bollards that were cut during the prototype tests and showed the photographs to the president. “That’s a wall designed by previous administrations,” Trump said.
The version of the barrier being installed is based on the same bollard design, which the president calls “steel slats.” It features six-inch-thick square bollards with a steel exterior that is three-sixteenths of an inch and a core filled with commercial-grade 5,000-pound concrete that is strengthened with rebar.
Kevin Trumble, a professor of materials engineering at Purdue University, and Srinivasan Chandrasekar, a professor of industrial engineering at Purdue, said a skilled operator with a reciprocating saw would be able to cut through the structure and that a severed bollard could be pushed out of the way using a standard car jack.
The engineers said other lithium battery tools could also be used to cut the steel and concrete. “You could use another device, like an abrasive saw, that would go even faster, but they create sparks because they operate at a high speed,” Chandrasekar said.
The engineers estimated that it would take someone 20 minutes or less to cut through a bollard if a team worked in pairs with two saws. The crews might go through multiple blades to complete a cut, the engineers said, but the blades can be changed quickly to resume sawing.
Online video demonstrations of reciprocating saws show that commercially available diamond grit and tungsten carbide blades are capable of slicing through thick pieces of steel and concrete in significantly less time. One toothy, hardened blade that is particularly adept at cutting metal — the Diablo Steel Demon — can be seen zipping through a trailer hitch in less than 20 seconds.
Diablo brand promotional videos show carbide “extreme metal cutting” blades easily sawing through rebar, angle iron, steel pipes and steel plate that is three-eighths of an inch. The blades sell for between $10 and $15 at hardware stores and online. Diamond grit blades, which retail for slightly more, are used widely for cutting through steel, concrete and other materials.
The Trump administration has so far completed 76 miles of new barriers, all of it in areas like San Diego where the structure has replaced older, shorter and, in some cases, dilapidated fencing.
An additional 158 miles of barrier are under construction, according to CBP, and the agency said 276 miles are in a “preconstruction” phase.
The administration is on track to complete 450 miles of barriers by the end of next year, CBP acting commissioner Mark Morgan said last week. The latest construction data obtained by The Post show that the administration has finished just 2 percent of the barrier planned for stretches of border in Texas, where plans call for 166 miles of new fencing. Almost all of that barrier would be built on private land that the government has yet to acquire.
Trump campaigned on a promise to make Mexico pay for construction of the barrier, but nearly $10 billion that his administration has budgeted for the project has been taxpayer money from U.S. funding sources, primarily the Defense Department.
A Single Scandal Sums Up All of Trump’s Failures
Many of the tales of controversy to emerge from the Trump administration have been abstract, or complicated, or murky. Whenever anyone warns about destruction of “norms,” the conversation quickly becomes speculative—the harms are theoretical, vague, and in the future.
This makes new Washington Post reporting about President Donald Trump’s border wall especially valuable. The Post writes about how Trump has repeatedly pressured the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Homeland Security to award a contract for building a wall at the southern U.S. border to a North Dakota company headed by a leading Republican donor.
The story demonstrates the shortcomings of Trump’s attempt to bring private-sector techniques into government. It shows his tendency toward cronyism, his failures as a negotiator, and the ease with which a fairly primitive attention campaign can sway him. At heart, though, what it really exemplifies is Trump’s insistence on placing performative gestures over actual efficacy. And it is a concrete example—almost literally—of how the president’s violations of norms weaken the country and waste taxpayer money.
The Post reports: In phone calls, White House meetings and conversations aboard Air Force One during the past several months, Trump has aggressively pushed Dickinson, N.D.-based Fisher Industries to Department of Homeland Security leaders and Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the Army Corps, according to the administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions.
It may be a not-very-subtle sign of the frustration in the Army that the news leaked to the Post the same day that Semonite was called to the White House and Trump once again pressed him.*
Trump administration will hire Cuccinelli for senior DHS border role
The Trump administration will hire conservative firebrand and former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli II to coordinate immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security, three administration officials said Tuesday.
Cuccinelli will work at DHS in a senior role and will report to acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan, while also providing regular briefings to President Trump at the White House, according two officials briefed on the appointment.
.. Cuccinelli, who has been hawkish on immigration policy during television appearances that also praise Trump, appears to fulfill the president’s desire to have a forceful personality and a loyalist at the highest levels of DHS. But his arrival risks new instability at the agency, coming six weeks after Trump ousted Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and replaced her with McAleenan, a long-serving official who was confirmed by the Senate last year as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and who is one of the few administration figures who retains a favorable reputation with lawmakers from both parties.
Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank whose immigration-reduction agenda has had significant influence in the White House, called Cuccinelli “an unusual choice.”
“He doesn’t have any immigration experience, but he does have law enforcement experience,” said Krikorian, who said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the appointment would make a difference. The crucial factor, he predicted, would be access to the White House.
“If he does not answer directly to the president, he’s not likely to be able to get much done,” he said.
.. The White House offered the job to Cuccinelli after it was turned down by Tom Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to two officials. Trump also soured weeks ago on Kris Kobach, the Kansas Republican favored by immigration restrictionist groups, according to one senior administration official.
.. “It is bad news for [McAleenan],” said one senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide candid views. “You have someone at the agency that the White House might have in mind to be the next DHS secretary.”
Another former department official predicted Cuccinelli’s lack of authority at the agency and distance from the White House would leave him in a weak position from the outset.
“Putting an immigration czar at DHS is a total waste,” the person said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to inquiries about Cuccinelli’s role. Cuccinelli, who was at the White House on Monday, could not be reached for comment. His expected hiring was first reported by the New York Times.
If the White House is grooming him as a possible replacement for McAleenan, he would face a difficult path to confirmation.
Cuccinelli is deeply disliked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has vowed to block Cuccinelli from any Senate-confirmed post for leading efforts in 2014 backing insurgent candidates that hurt the Senate GOP majority, McConnell advisers said.
Two years ago, Cuccinelli signed a letter drafted by GOP activists calling on McConnell to step down.
When Cuccinelli’s name surfaced last month as a potential Nielsen replacement, McConnell told reporters he’d conveyed his unease to the White House. “I have expressed my, shall I say, lack of enthusiasm for one of them . . . Ken Cuccinelli,” McConnell said.
The Virginia conservative, who has a long record of combative television appearances, is even less popular with Democrats. “This is absurd and outrageous,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) wrote on Twitter. “He doesn’t deserve a taxpayer-funded salary.”
Others more supportive of the move noted that the DHS secretary’s role is challenging enough when there isn’t a migration crisis — and with hurricane season approaching, McAleenan could benefit from a strong personality fully devoted to the border.
In April, more than 100,000 migrants were taken into custody along the U.S.-Mexico border for the second consecutive month, and the numbers in May are on pace to go even higher. McAleenan warned in late March that U.S. agents and infrastructure at the border had hit a “breaking point,” and since then the situation has worsened, leaving holding cells so overcrowded that DHS officials have been transferring migrants out of South Texas by aircraft simply to make room for ever-growing numbers of new arrivals.
Cuccinelli has been a vocal advocate for Trump’s proposed border wall and other measures popular with hard-liners. He has backed constitutional changes to restrict birthright citizenship, urged lawsuits against employers who hire undocumented immigrants and at one point supported denying immigrant workers — including those in the country lawfully — from collecting unemployment benefits if they are fired for not speaking English on the job.
His appointment to DHS has others in the administration worried there will be too many players fighting to establish control over an immigration agenda, with White House adviser Stephen Miller already chafing officials at DHS.
.. One White House adviser said Cuccinelli would advocate for the White House’s aggressive position at the agency. Miller has argued to Trump that others within DHS are trying to stall him.
McAleenan last week pushed back at an attempt by Miller to have Trump’s pick to lead ICE installed at CBP instead. In a tense White House meeting Thursday, McAleenan said he needed control over DHS to remain in his job, administration officials said.
The animus between Cuccinelli and Senate Republicans stems from his leadership of the Senate Conservatives Fund, which organized anti-incumbent efforts, and from his role at the 2016 Republican convention, when he derided “petty, tyrannical rules” and threw his ID badge on the floor in protest of Trump’s nomination. He was a strong supporter of the presidential bid by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who has since become one of Trump’s most ardent defenders.
Another senior administration official who welcomed the appointment said there was an acute need for someone to be an immigration policy field marshal.
.. “The president’s frustration is not directed at DHS alone,” the official said. “It’s DOJ, DOD, State. So this job will ensure closer coordination at a senior level, and it’s an effort to acknowledge you need someone who can have conversations with department heads about policies and drive them to the same place.”
But the official also acknowledged that Cuccinelli’s appointment risked undercutting McAleenan at a time when the acting secretary has been making inroads with lawmakers, including Democrats who see him as a neutral law enforcement official rather than a White House political operative.
“I don’t see how this appointment makes things better on the Hill,” the official said.
White House Proposes $4.7 Trillion Budget for Fiscal 2020
Trump’s outline would sharply cut spending on safety-net programs
The Trump administration proposed a $4.7 trillion budget that would sharply reduce spending on safety-net programs, while effectively exempting the Pentagon from strict spending caps set to take effect in fiscal year 2020.
The president’s plan would widen the federal budget deficit to $1.1 trillion in the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, and would propose to eliminate the deficit by 2034, in part by assuming the economy grows much faster than many independent forecasters expect.
The White House budget document proposed $2.7 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, including $1.9 trillion in cuts to mandatory spending programs, a senior administration official said Monday. The official said the president’s budget proposes more spending cuts over the next 10 years than any administration in history.
The budget would reduce the overall level of nondefense spending by 5% next year below current federal spending caps, a nearly $30 billion reduction. The budget would increase military spending by 5%, to $750 billion from $716 billion in fiscal year 2019.
.. The budget proposes to cut $22 billion from safety-net programs next year—$327 billion over the next decade—and proposes new work requirements for recipients of food stamps, Medicaid and federal housing programs, the senior administration official said.
.. The budget assumes the extension of the individual- and estate-tax cuts slated to expire at the end of 2025, and it proposes repealing some tax incentives for alternative energy, including a tax credit for plug-in electric cars.It requests $8.6 billion for new barriers along the southern U.S. border, including $5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and $3.6 billion for the Defense Department’s military-construction budget. The president’s blueprint would also provide additional funding to boost manpower at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, and it proposes policy changes to end so-called sanctuary cities.The plan would also increase investments in national defense, such as artificial intelligence and hypersonic weapons, and provide more than $80 billion for veterans health care, a 10% increase from fiscal year 2019, according to the White House budget office.