I did notice.
I have also noticed promises of mass deportations. I’m still waiting to see that.
I also noticed claims that new wall is being built. Now I find out it has almost all been replacement wall.
I understand the feral judges problem but I’m getting tired of waiting to see some actual change.
The tear gas repel this weekend is the most positive act I have seen lately.
The President is really good at mouthy tweets and has made some administrative changes but he isn’t doing much apparent good on the front of enforcing laws that exist. How can anyone prevent him from doing that?
I am trying to cheer you up, and to get some of the good news to you as well.
It is not all good news, that’s for sure (our enemies get to try their tactics as well), but the media works night and day to filter and spin their reporting, to discourage our side.
The real story with the border wall - the real significant change from the last years and decades - is that a very concrete (a little pun there) and credible effort to transform the toughest and most important part of the border is getting very close to beginning.
I have been following the wall planning and construction daily (with some human days skipped here and there), since the President’s inauguration, and have been posting progress reports on Free Republic to keep our fellow Conservatives abreast of developments.
A clear pattern, or sequence of events is evident in the planning, contracting and construction of segments of the wall. The time required to step through those stages of getting a particular segment built has shortened, as the details have been worked out, and ways to overcome the challenges have improved - but the sequence is a quite reliable indicator.
This public comment period signals that they are finalizing/certifying the specifics of a segment, just before putting it out for bid. Early on, there were long delays between getting the funding in hand, and having all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed, well enough for Government employees to risk the Contracting Officer’s (and certifying Engineers and official’s) careers on a binding contract. In 2017, it basically took into 2018.
While the first few segments were underway however, they went ahead and continued to prepare/detail the follow-on segments, in order of the priority list (even establishing the priority list itself took most of 2017). The result of all that preparation and progress in overcoming obstacles, as well as the constant management pressure to accelerate, is that the time for each step in the process has gotten quicker.
When the emergency declaration was declared toward the end of February this year, DoD had their first contracts awarded in May. That is head-spinningly fast for major Government acquisition - all the more so for construction projects.
So even though the time spent on each step has changed, the sequence of steps visible to the public still go in the same order. First, we see them get the money, then ask for public comment/conduct a local community briefing, then we see waivers issued for environmental and other requirements, then we see contract awards announced (sometimes waivers come after award instead of before), then there is usually about 10 weeks for the Contractor to begin work (6-8 months from getting the money).
This specific public comment announcement indicates that these segment are being implemented - and the scope of this announcement is by far, the biggest of any so far. The Rio Grande Valley is where the Left (correctly) assessed they had best chance of stymieing efforts to secure the border. It was the main battleground, to maintain a problem that would be just too hard for future Administrations to ever crack, leaving an open, high traffic route available for mass migration. They have tried every kind of lawsuit, political maneuver, protest and media campaign there.
With all the private landowners, the extremely challenging terrain (a changing river path, subject to hurricane flooding, and construction approval subject to ratified International Treaty), as well as the ability to conveniently (urban accommodations on both sides of the border there) spread out over a 100 mile front and infiltrate through dense vegetation, with no physical barrier.
The Rio Grande Valley Sector accounts for about half the total apprehensions on the Southern border. It is also the closest point in the USA to the Central American Countries. It would take an additional 1,500 mile trip to go cross the border in San Diego, once they make it up to the Brownsville, Texas border.
Judging by how things have been going lately, my estimate is that at least the DoD funded segments in the RGV will be contracted before 30 September, and break ground before Christmas (assuming that the pending Supreme Court ruling is favorable in the next few days/weeks). I would SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) that DoD part to be about 20 to 40 miles worth.
Some of the other segments funded by Congressional appropriation could also reasonably follow that same timeline, but I’d expect some to lag 2-3 months, and Congress (Henry Cuellar) is likely to jam a few more particular miles in next year’s appropriations, like they did this year. So groundbreakings on various segments will possibly spread out through the first half of 2020. In 2020, we will have many more simultaneous crews working at different points, than we have seen so far.
The two significant points are:
1. This public comment announcement is not some general jawboning session - it is a concrete step that shows clearly that these particular segments are now going forward, and are well down the path to starting work.
2. The scale and impact of this effort dwarf what we have seen so far. This is the main battle, and this proposal is essentially for full victory in the Rio Grande Valley with this year’s money.
We will still need Laredo to get done, because they can serve as a feasible alternative route (albeit narrower) - but no where else along the border gives migrant flows a similar mix of advantages of wide open frontage, and short travel distance from last night’s hotel, to the ability to quickly disappear on the American side.
San Diego (the biggest urban area on the border) is getting an awesome upgrade already (with 2017 and 2018 money). A complete run of bollards is already done, from the Ocean to the Mountain, and a second run of mighty 30 foot bollards is going in behind them, which will be done around Christmas. In between there is a no man’s land “enforcement zone” exclusively for Border Patrol. Observation areas are being cleared end to end, and the tough parts of the terrain that had been left undeveloped, are now getting the heavy lifting earth moving/grading and road building to allow permanently improved high speed response. The whole enforcement zone will be lit with stadium lighting, and constantly under observation by powerful day/night cameras, monitored by a 24x7 command center, and by unblinking artificial intelligence software.
Multiple sensor/alarm systems are hidden the length of the enforcement zone, and the Border Patrol Officers there have already begun receiving powerful new technical capabilities to observe miles into the Mexico side from their mobile patrol vehicles.
San Diego will be buttoned up tight by Christmas. It has already quieted down there. El Paso has received four miles downtown, and twenty miles extending West from their suburbs (from the Western foot of Mount Cristo Rey). El Paso needs more, but it is really a matter of a small segment here or there, nothing like the huge wild expanse of the Rio Grande Valley. Calexico, Yuma, Tecate are all getting 30 foot bollards now (with roads, lights, cameras, alarms/sensors).
When the border cities and Rio Grande Valley are buttoned up, it will be a fundamentally different ball game in the contest between cat and mice on the border.
The Rio Grande Valley by far is the hardest part. This is huge. Historic.
One more fun fact is that the first 60 feet from the border in New Mexico, Arizona and California have a special legal status under the so-called “Roosevelt Reservation”.
In those States, they can skip the public comment period, if their project will be confined within the reservation (as it was with the 20 mile segment running West from El Paso).
There have also been cases where they did not publicly announce contract awards, and the workers just showed up a few days before groundbreaking (like the four miles in Downtown El Paso’s Chihuahita neighborhood). Sometimes, the public announcement of the award has been done by (or first by) the winning contractors in a press release, rather than the Contracting Officer on the CBP website.