The state of Texas is making more efforts to protect its borders from illegal migrants. Last Thursday, the Texas National Guard doubled its efforts to reinforce the border wall with concertina wire. The work was done around the Rio Grande area of South Texas.
The 12-foot-tall wire fence panels are reinforced with a 3-foot layer of concertina. The new reinforced design is designed to make it more difficult for migrants to climb over it into the United States illegally.
The new design is aptly called an anti-climb barrier. Also, Brownsville is currently the first and only Texas border city so far to have the new fencing installed. According to Texas National Guard Maj. Mike Perry, it’s all part of Texas’ Operation Lone Star.
According to state plans, a total of 6,000 feet of anti-climb concertina wire fencing will be built around border cities. So far, they have made over 70% progress after working through the Gateway International Bridge. Texas National Guard Capt leads the team building the fence. Chris Daniel.
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The Texas National Guard team isn’t only responsible for building the new fence. It is also responsible for layering concertina wire across Rio Grande’s muddy banks. Currently, the team is constructing the anti-climb barbed-wire fencing across from a migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico. The camp accommodates about 1,000 asylum seekers.
The fence construction is fast-paced, with the team setting up over 15 panels every hour. Every panel is 8 feet wide and 12 feet tall, and they’re linked together to create a firm barrier the migrants can’t climb. The team creates the fence by laying it on the ground and then rolling the concertina wire around the frame. Next, they put it on plastic ballasts “that we’re able to fill with water to instill more stability and rigidity to it – some weight at the bottom so it’s not easy to push over or pull down,” Daniel said.
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“What it’s doing is reinforcing the concertina (wire) that’s already there on the bank to try to stop the migrant traffic that’s moving through in between these ports of entry here,” he said. The Texas National Guard also put up warning signs in Spanish, cautioning migrants not to try jumping across. However, it doesn’t seem to deter determined migrants as clothes, blankets, and other fabrics cover the concertina wire on the ground.
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According to Perry, the hopeful migrants use the clothes and fabric to maneuver across the concertina on the ground. He also said that a lot of people die attempting to climb into America. However, he hopes the added concertina wire would discourage migrants from trying.
“Nobody is attempting to cross where the barrier is because it adds that extra level of barrier to prevent people from coming in and that’s what this mission is: prevention and deterring people from coming in,” Perry said.
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