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Texas Issues $224 Million Contract to Build 30-Foot Border Wall in Laredo Sector
A $224 million contract was issued by the Texas Facilities Commission to construct roughly 10 miles of 30-foot border wall segments on state- or privately-owned land in Webb County bordering the Rio Grande.
The contract to construct 9.4 miles of state-funded border walls was given to The Fisher Sand and Gravel Company. For 5.4 miles of the project, the state has already secured property access.
One rancher told Breitbart Texas that the State of Texas has been in talks with property owners along the Rio Grande in the Laredo and Del Rio Sectors for more than a year. According to the rancher, these ranchers support the project to deter migrants from destroying their property by tearing down fences and leaving mountains of trash in their wake.
Having access to gates so they can work on both sides of the barrier after it is finished is a major concern for the ranchers.
The construction will emulate the 30-foot border walls built close to Eagle Pass.
The Laredo Morning Times stated that Dr. Victor Trevino, the mayor of Laredo, had concerns about the new border wall's development.
“Being the mayor of the largest inland port, I am a supporter of border security, but I am not convinced that a physical border wall will do anything except divide our community along partisan lines,” the mayor told the local newspaper. “In speaking with my counterpart in Nuevo Laredo, Alcaldesa Carmen Lilia Canturosas, we believe security can be achieved by working closer together than by being divided.”
Of the nine southwest border sectors, the Laredo Sector has the second-lowest volume of traffic. Only 13,622 migrants have been captured by Border Patrol authorities thus far in this fiscal year, which started on October 1, 2022. This represents a 40 percent decline from 22,779 over the same period in FY22.
The second busiest sector is the Del Rio Sector. These agents detained 142,444 migrants in the first quarter of current fiscal year. In comparison to the 91,600 people detained during the same period previous year, this indicates a surge of more than 55%, according to the Southwest Land Border Encounters report from December.
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