Americans who live near border say Trumps wall is unwelcome
Source: Associated Press
LOS EBANOS, Texas (AP) — Forget Donald Trump’s Great Wall. The people who live in the bustling, fertile Rio Grande Valley, where the U.S. border meets the Gulf of Mexico, think a “virtual wall” of surveillance technology makes a lot more sense. It’s already in wide use and expanding.
Erecting a 40-foot concrete barrier across the entire 1,954-mile frontier with Mexico, as Trump promised during the presidential campaign, collides head-on with multiple realities: geology, fierce local resistance and the question of who pays the bill.
People cackled at Trump’s idea that Mexico would willingly deliver the billions required. Mexican officials say they won’t. So few locals were surprised when the president-elect seemed to soften his position five days after the election, saying the wall could include some fencing. “The wall is not going to stop anyone,” Jorge Garcia said.
Garcia expected to lose access to most of his 30-acre riverside ranch after the U.S. Border Fence Act was enacted a decade ago under President George W. Bush. Garcia is still waiting to see if the Border Patrol will put a fence or wall on the sliver of land it surveyed and promised to pay $8,300 for.
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