Wish they had included a cost estimate.
What ever it is it’d be cheap at twice the price, when you consider 1 in 10 people here is probably here illegally.
“Wish they had included a cost estimate.”
...and a schedule.
The bottom line is that we tend to spend an average of about $4 million to build a mile of border fence, but it varies widely due to type and terrain.
The article says that they signed a contract with EADS in 2009, and they had a photo of a soldier in a tower monitoring a stretch that was already operational.
Their terrain is some of the easiest to fence - flat, open, and with little vegetation growth to manage. Nonetheless, their basic approach could be replicated over much of the US/Mexico border - multiple layers of fence sandwiching a no man’s land wired with multiple sensor systems, and reaction forces regularly spaced all along. We have tended to build single layer fencing about 15-20 feet tall with an access road and some surveillance.
They were going to do a 900 km (540 mile) segment (the part bordering Iraq) out of their larger total border project, while we have about a 2,000 mile border with Mexico. We averaged about 200 miles per year when we were building (2006-2009), with 670 miles complete. Another 700 miles was authorized in 2013, but this is supposed to be double layer, so it should be somewhat more expensive, but operationally it will have strong advantages.
I would imagine that they have a jump on the surveying and planning after the earlier round of construction, but it will have to be updated. No doubt the administration will slow roll things, while the left throws up roadblocks.