Border Patrol Disasters

[GreyhoundFan]

"Border Patrol chief was a member of racist Facebook group — and says she didn’t notice"

Spoiler

The revelations over secret Facebook groups popular with Border Patrol agents were eye-popping. A constant stream of racist, sexist and violent images persisted for years, reporters revealed. Days later, officials said those responsible for posts were previously investigated, with unclear results.

Then, in testimony Wednesday, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost acknowledged she herself was a member of one of the groups; she had been active since at least last fall, according to images published by the Intercept.

Her reason for involvement in the group was to evaluate “how I am representing my workforce,” she told lawmakers in a hearing about oversight within her agency.

Provost sighed deeply. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” she told the House Appropriations subcommittee, and said she was unaware of the nature of the posts until ProPublica published a report on July 1. The posts contain caustic remarks about the deaths of migrants, sexually explicit images and xenophobic comments.

Her admission raised a question: Why did she not use her membership in the group to instead measure cultural sentiment among agents, attitudes about migrants or possible concerns she could address at the top?

“She either missed it from failure to effectively do her job or actively avoided thinking about it,” Josiah Heyman, director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso, said Thursday.

Part of Provost’s duties is to visit agents at Border Patrol facilities, where front-line supervisors may play down realities of a recruiting and morale crisis. Facebook, then, could provide an unvarnished look at how agents view themselves and their duties — or, in this case, reveal cultural issues rise to the surface as the agency faces intense scrutiny.

Provost looked for candid words about her performance, Heyman noted, “but she manifested no curiosity about candid things being said in other regards.”

More than 60 active and eight former agents are being investigated for their involvement in the group, the Associated Press reported. Some posts questioned the authenticity of a photo of a drowned migrant man and his young daughter.

Another showed a crudely doctored photo of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) performing forced oral sex on President Trump.

Customs and Border Protection, the agency that includes Border Patrol, did not respond to a request for comment about why Provost did not use the group in a manner that could have prevented the organization’s latest black eye.

In her testimony, Provost said she is “as outraged as everyone else.”

She “condemned” the posts in a message to the agency, launched investigations into agents who posted or responded to posts and gave her passwords to agency oversight officials, who analyzed her online activity and told her that she had logged on to Facebook nine times over the period of a year and that her interactions had been mostly with friends and family members.

Yet Provost said the posts at the private group page “I’m 10-15,” after the law enforcement code for “aliens in custody,” were not indicative of cultural rot within Border Patrol. She called offenders “a few bad apples” among about 20,000 agents. The group for current and former agents included about 9,500 members, though other groups exist.

UTEP’s Heyman suggested that the posts indicate cultural and attitudinal problems that he said officials have been reluctant to address. He led a survey of approximately 1,100 migrants deported to Mexico, and nearly a quarter of respondents said they were verbally abused by U.S. immigration agents, primarily Border Patrol members. Eleven percent reported physical abuse.

"The posts are very consistent with that we found,” he said. It’s not just ‘this person is out of status, and I need to apply law . . . but I hate this person, I want to humiliate this person.’ ”

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Border Patrol chief was a member of racist Facebook group — and says she didn’t notice"

  Hide contents

The revelations over secret Facebook groups popular with Border Patrol agents were eye-popping. A constant stream of racist, sexist and violent images persisted for years, reporters revealed. Days later, officials said those responsible for posts were previously investigated, with unclear results.

Then, in testimony Wednesday, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost acknowledged she herself was a member of one of the groups; she had been active since at least last fall, according to images published by the Intercept.

Her reason for involvement in the group was to evaluate “how I am representing my workforce,” she told lawmakers in a hearing about oversight within her agency.

Provost sighed deeply. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” she told the House Appropriations subcommittee, and said she was unaware of the nature of the posts until ProPublica published a report on July 1. The posts contain caustic remarks about the deaths of migrants, sexually explicit images and xenophobic comments.

Her admission raised a question: Why did she not use her membership in the group to instead measure cultural sentiment among agents, attitudes about migrants or possible concerns she could address at the top?

“She either missed it from failure to effectively do her job or actively avoided thinking about it,” Josiah Heyman, director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso, said Thursday.

Part of Provost’s duties is to visit agents at Border Patrol facilities, where front-line supervisors may play down realities of a recruiting and morale crisis. Facebook, then, could provide an unvarnished look at how agents view themselves and their duties — or, in this case, reveal cultural issues rise to the surface as the agency faces intense scrutiny.

Provost looked for candid words about her performance, Heyman noted, “but she manifested no curiosity about candid things being said in other regards.”

More than 60 active and eight former agents are being investigated for their involvement in the group, the Associated Press reported. Some posts questioned the authenticity of a photo of a drowned migrant man and his young daughter.

Another showed a crudely doctored photo of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) performing forced oral sex on President Trump.

Customs and Border Protection, the agency that includes Border Patrol, did not respond to a request for comment about why Provost did not use the group in a manner that could have prevented the organization’s latest black eye.

In her testimony, Provost said she is “as outraged as everyone else.”

She “condemned” the posts in a message to the agency, launched investigations into agents who posted or responded to posts and gave her passwords to agency oversight officials, who analyzed her online activity and told her that she had logged on to Facebook nine times over the period of a year and that her interactions had been mostly with friends and family members.

Yet Provost said the posts at the private group page “I’m 10-15,” after the law enforcement code for “aliens in custody,” were not indicative of cultural rot within Border Patrol. She called offenders “a few bad apples” among about 20,000 agents. The group for current and former agents included about 9,500 members, though other groups exist.

UTEP’s Heyman suggested that the posts indicate cultural and attitudinal problems that he said officials have been reluctant to address. He led a survey of approximately 1,100 migrants deported to Mexico, and nearly a quarter of respondents said they were verbally abused by U.S. immigration agents, primarily Border Patrol members. Eleven percent reported physical abuse.

"The posts are very consistent with that we found,” he said. It’s not just ‘this person is out of status, and I need to apply law . . . but I hate this person, I want to humiliate this person.’ ”

 

At best she's a clueless idiot unqualified to do her job. At worst she's a racist POS who couldn't see anything wrong there because she is perfectly fine with xenophobia and misogyny.

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

Rufus weeps.

 

[fraurosena]

Monsters. Each and every one of them.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

It doesn't matter if you're a US citizen, or that you're only a child. You have brown skin, so...

 

[fraurosena]

Evil assholes. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Smash!]

Didn't know where to put it but this is an excellent read on the Mississippi ICE raid and everything that's wrong with it including it seems to be part of the reelection campaign. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157448354321354&id=618581353

 

 

[fraurosena]

Because they can't have a pesky thing like judges speaking out against their policies and thwarting their efforts to demonize non-white immigrants. 

Trump administration mulls decertifying immigration judges' union

Quote

The Trump administration has reportedly taken a step to decertify an immigration judges’ union that has been repeatedly critical of President Trump and the White House’s policy proposals.

A Department of Justice (DOJ) spokesperson told The New York Times on Friday that the department filed a petition to the Federal Labor Relations Authority asking whether the National Association of Immigration Judges could have its certification revoked since its members are “management officials” and unable to collectively organize.

Members of the union have denounced the move as misguided and as an attempt to dismantle the group. 

“This is a misguided effort to minimize our impact,” Judge Amiena Khan, vice president of the judges’ union, told the Times. “We serve as a check and balance on management prerogatives and that’s why they are doing this to us."

Judge Ashley Tabaddor, the union’s president, told The Washington Post that she thinks the petition is an attempt to “disband and destroy the union."

Immigration judges are unique in that, unlike federal judges, they are appointed by the attorney general and considered employees of the DOJ, the Times noted. Representatives of the immigration judges' union are permitted to publicly speak about DOJ policies that are deemed political. Sitting judges are prohibited from doing so. 

Khan and Tabaddor have continued to publicly criticize the Trump administration's policies throughout the president's two-plus years in the White House. For example, the union in 2018 condemned an administration quota system that required judges to complete 700 cases annually. 

The judges' union had reportedly said that the system hindered due process rights for immigrants in court. Tabbador had said at the time that the pressure to take on more cases was like “psychological warfare."

BuzzFeed News reported earlier this year that some immigration judges were leaving their positions because of changes to the court, as well as an increasing backlog driven by the administration's policies. The Justice Department has moved to help with the backlog, which is reportedly more than 830,000 cases. 

But the union has still been critical of those efforts. 

“I can’t work alone, I am reliant on support staff,” said Khan. “Right now there are two judges to one support staff person,” which has delayed the progress of cases despite the additional judges, she said.

The union is planning to officially respond to the petition once it receives a notice from the Federal Labor Relations Authority. The petition will likely lead to an investigation from the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a DOJ spokesperson told the Times. 

 

[fraurosena]

Legal or not, it makes no difference. You're poor, you're an immigrant, you're a target of repression. End of story.

 

[smittykins]

If you’re a brown immigrant, you can’t win.  If you’re not sucking on the government teat, then ZOMG YOU’RE TAKING OUR JOBZZZ!

[fraurosena]

I’m glad, but this should not be considered a huge win. It should be reported that the government has been humiliated and made a fool of for even attempting to think they could get away with their horrible ideas.

 

[fraurosena]

Stephen Miller is evil. 

White House Mulled Ways to Block Migrant Children From Schools

Quote

Some top aides to President Donald Trump sought for months for a way to give states the power to block undocumented immigrant children from enrolling in public schools -- all part of the administration’s efforts to stem illegal crossings at the southern U.S. border.

Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller had been a driving force behind the effort as early as 2017, pressing cabinet officials and members of the White House Domestic Policy Council repeatedly to devise a way to limit enrollment, according to several people familiar with the matter. The push was part of a menu of ideas on immigration that could be carried out without congressional approval.

Ultimately, they abandoned the idea after being told repeatedly that any such effort ran afoul of a 1982 Supreme Court case guaranteeing access to public schools. But the consideration of denying hundreds of thousands of children access to education illustrates the breadth of the White House’s push to crack down on undocumented immigrants.

The strategy echoed the aim of a new rule the administration announced earlier this week that could block immigrants from becoming legal permanent residents if they’ve used government benefits. Any immigrant who had used Medicaid, public housing assistance or food stamps for more than 12 months over a 36-month period can be denied permanent resident status under the new rule.

The so-called public charge rule has sparked outrage among Democrats, who say it’s cruel. They have criticized Trump on a range of immigration policies, including a plan he announced last month to force Central American migrants to file for asylum in Guatemala instead of the U.S., a measure advocacy groups said would put their lives at risk. The debate over immigration is all but certain to play a central role in the 2020 elections.

A senior administration official, who requested anonymity when asked to comment on the story, dismissed accounts of Miller’s initiative as gossip from disgruntled bureaucrats but declined to identify any specific inaccuracy. The official also said undocumented immigrants placed an enormous strain on social services, including school districts.

Public Services

Starting in late 2017, Miller pressed hard to find a way to limit undocumented immigrants’ access to public services, including education, according to the people.

That effort included consideration last year of a guidance memo issued by the Education Department that would tell states they had the option to refuse students with an undocumented status to attend public schools from kindergarten through high school. A memo was never issued.

Education Department spokeswoman Liz Hill said: “The memo wasn’t issued because the secretary would never consider it.”

The White House’s push was dropped because members of the administration determined the plan could violate Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 Supreme Court case that prohibited states from denying free public education based on their immigration status.

The court, in a 5-4 ruling, said that denying migrant children an education would “foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our nation” and that punishing them for their parents’ actions “does not comport with fundamental conceptions of justice.”

‘Punish Little Kids’

Immigration activists said they were alarmed the White House would consider a policy change targeting migrant children.

“Such a radical policy change would be unlawful, unacceptable and un-American,” said Frank Sharry, who runs the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice. “The notion that we should punish little kids who go to school and pledge allegiance to our flag because Trump and Miller want to make America white again is incredibly cruel, dark and sinister.”

The president in May said he was concerned that abuse of the asylum system “strains our public school systems” and used funds that should go to American citizens.

“We’re using the funds that should be going to them,” Trump said. “And that shouldn’t happen. And it’s not going to happen in a very short period of time.”

During the presidency of Barack Obama, immigration rights groups raised concern about that schools systems were making it too hard for children to enroll by imposing rigid documentation requirements. In response, the administration issued guidance to school administrators to be more flexible in the documents they accept.

Residency Documents

The 2014 guidance said schools should accept utility bills or leases as substitute proof of residency after reports that some districts were demanding driver’s licenses or Social Security cards that could be unattainable for those in the country illegally.

“Public school districts have an obligation to enroll students regardless of immigration status and without discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin,” then-Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement at the time.

Congress also attempted to pass legislation in 1996 that would have allowed states to block public education benefits to undocumented children or charge tuition, but the effort failed when former President Bill Clinton threatened to veto the bill.

Around 725,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade students in U.S. public and private schools in 2014 were unauthorized to be in the country, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. That amounts to about 1.3% of total school enrollment.

The U.S. Census bureau said earlier this year that the cost spent by per pupil on elementary and secondary education was $12,201 annually, meaning spending on undocumented migrant students could exceed $8 billion annually.

 

[fraurosena]

No vaccinations and inhumane for those terrible brown people. Simply let them rot in their cages and die.  It's America's passive version of the Endlösung.

The US won't provide flu vaccines to migrant families at border detention camps

Quote

The U.S. won't be vaccinating migrant families in holding centers ahead of this year's flu season, despite calls from doctors to boost efforts to fight the infection that's killed at least three children at detention facilities in the past year.

"In general, due to the short-term nature of CBP holding and the complexities of operating vaccination programs, neither CBP nor its medical contractors administer vaccinations to those in our custody," a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

At least three children who were held in detention centers after crossing into the U.S. from Mexico have died in recent months, in part, from the flu, according to a letter to Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., from several doctors urging Congress to investigate health conditions at the centers.

The United States had previously gone almost a decade without any children dying while under U.S. immigration custody.

"I can tell you from personal experience that child deaths are rare events," Harvard pediatrics professor Dr. Jonathan Winickoff said in an email. Winickoff signed on to the Aug. 1 letter with forensic pathologist Judy Melinek and Johns Hopkins public health professors Dr. Joshua Sharfstein and Dr. Paul Spiegel.

They said the U.S. death rate in children from the flu is about 1 in 600,000. So far, three children have died out of 200,000 people held at detention facilities along the border, they wrote.

"When I learned that multiple children had died in detention from potentially preventable causes, it truly disturbed me," Winickoff said. "The country needs urgent answers to that question so that children stop dying in detention."

Winickoff said that current holding conditions, like being placed in close proximity to other immigrants, make it easy to spread infectious diseases from person to person. He added that contracting the flu weakens a child's immune system, making it harder to fight off other illnesses.

"A child might start out with flu but then die of another infection," he added.

If conditions don't improve, Dr. Julie Linton, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Immigrant Child and Family Health, said more children will needlessly die.

"There's a number of things that we can do to prevent deaths and infection. Those do not include holding children in cage-like facilities and warehouses," Linton said.

Children come into holding centers with a sense of resilience, Linton said, and potentially stronger immune systems. But the stress from being held against their will can cause immune systems to tank, she said.

That, paired with unsanitary conditions, such as open toilets and "insufficient supplies" to wash hands, is a breeding ground for infection, Linton added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends annual flu shots for everyone over 6 months old in the U.S.

The United States over the past year has seen an influx of people crossing the southern border, seeking relief from their home countries. From October through July, nearly 70,000 unaccompanied children were apprehended at the border, according to CBP data. In the same time period, 432,838 "family units" were taken into U.S. custody.

That's led to dangerous overcrowding of migrant facilities, where investigators for the Department of Homeland Security reported prolonged holding of children without access to showers or laundry facilities. DHS inspectors said adults were being held in standing room-only areas for up to a week and some had gone a month without a shower, contributing to unsanitary conditions and health risks, according to a July 2 report by the agency's Office of Inspector General that was obtained by NBC News.

"Flu deaths are particularly tragic in my opinion because they are almost always preventable with good public health measures," Winickoff said.

When asked about health-care access for people in custody, a CBP spokesperson said there's been a "dramatic increase" in medical personnel working along the southern border. CBP currently engages about 200 medical personnel, compared with the 20 personnel a year ago.

"Medical personnel on site are available 24/7 to provide medical diagnosis and treatment, address infectious disease issues, and coordinate referral to and follow up from local health system/emergency rooms," the spokeswoman said.

Migrants who "require vaccination" are referred to local health systems where they "may receive vaccinations ... if determined necessary," she said.

Linton acknowledged the government was employing more pediatricians, but said more legislation needs to be passed to increase care and conditions.

"When you're border patrol, whose responsibility is law enforcement, and giving them the responsibility of medical care, that's a complicated mission," Linton said. "It's critical to speak up as doctors."

 

 

[Audrey2]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

No vaccinations and inhumane for those terrible brown people. Simply let them rot in their cages and die.  It's America's passive version of the Endlösung.

The US won't provide flu vaccines to migrant families at border detention camps

 

They are such a vile group, I can see this administration choosing not to vaccinate the migrants then introducing different strains of the flu into the border detention camps.

[fraurosena]

Another move towards passive Endlösung.

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

Wowsers! Rufus is good.

 

[fraurosena]

Good news!

 

[candygirl200413]

So Netflix has a series called Living Undocumented. I recommend all to watch. It's 6 episodes but they are extremely tough. I'm barely into the second episode and I'm an emotional wreck. It's disgusting, it's so disgusting. We know how it is destroying families, people's livelihoods but I think seeing it in this setting just absolutely kills me. 

[fraurosena]

Trump administration foiled again!

 

On the whole, it turns out today was a really good day for foiling:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm sure this will be labeled as "fake news" by the mango manboy and his minions: "Smugglers are sawing through new sections of Trump’s border wall"

Spoiler

SAN DIEGO — Smuggling gangs in Mexico have repeatedly sawed through new sections of President Trump’s border wall in recent months by using commercially available power tools, opening gaps large enough for people and drug loads to pass through, according to U.S. agents and officials with knowledge of the damage.

The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier’s steel-and-concrete bollards in a matter of minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.

After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, allowing an adult to fit through the gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the very 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 and overtop the barriers, especially in the popular smuggling areas in and around San Diego, 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.

The 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 barrier design.

Some 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 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 easily repaired or replaced.

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 also 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 teams deploy lightweight ladders made from metal 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-wide 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.

Trump 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.”

At a rally in Tupelo, Miss., Friday night, Trump told the crowd, “The wall is going up rapidly ... And this is a very serious wall. This is the exact, everything they wanted.”

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 interdict 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’ work 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 pass.

Because CBP is adding double-layer barriers in such high-traffic areas 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 keep watch for U.S. agents, so the smuggling team can run back into Mexico if U.S. agents arrive. Once the agents leave, the smugglers can resume their sawing attempt 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 Holmes, 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 a set of 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 easily be cut 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 the Freedom of Information Act. 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 diameter 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 reinforced with metal rebar rods. 

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 it would take someone 15 to 20 minutes to cut through a bollard or less if a team worked in pairs with two saws. The crews might need to go through multiple blades to complete a cut, the engineers said, but they can be quickly changed 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 chrome 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 retailers. 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.

Another 158 miles of barrier is under construction, according to CBP, and the agency said 276 miles are in a “preconstruction” phase.

The administration remains 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 Washington 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.

 

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm sure this will be labeled as "fake news" by the mango manboy and his minions: "Smugglers are sawing through new sections of Trump’s border wall"

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SAN DIEGO — Smuggling gangs in Mexico have repeatedly sawed through new sections of President Trump’s border wall in recent months by using commercially available power tools, opening gaps large enough for people and drug loads to pass through, according to U.S. agents and officials with knowledge of the damage.

The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier’s steel-and-concrete bollards in a matter of minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.

After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, allowing an adult to fit through the gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the very 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 and overtop the barriers, especially in the popular smuggling areas in and around San Diego, 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.

The 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 barrier design.

Some 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 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 easily repaired or replaced.

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 also 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 teams deploy lightweight ladders made from metal 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-wide 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.

Trump 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.”

At a rally in Tupelo, Miss., Friday night, Trump told the crowd, “The wall is going up rapidly ... And this is a very serious wall. This is the exact, everything they wanted.”

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 interdict 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’ work 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 pass.

Because CBP is adding double-layer barriers in such high-traffic areas 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 keep watch for U.S. agents, so the smuggling team can run back into Mexico if U.S. agents arrive. Once the agents leave, the smugglers can resume their sawing attempt 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 Holmes, 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 a set of 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 easily be cut 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 the Freedom of Information Act. 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 diameter 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 reinforced with metal rebar rods. 

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 it would take someone 15 to 20 minutes to cut through a bollard or less if a team worked in pairs with two saws. The crews might need to go through multiple blades to complete a cut, the engineers said, but they can be quickly changed 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 chrome 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 retailers. 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.

Another 158 miles of barrier is under construction, according to CBP, and the agency said 276 miles are in a “preconstruction” phase.

The administration remains 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 Washington 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.

 

Oh, the irony...