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New reinforced panels are being used to strengthen the border wall in the Calexico area of California. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers, announced a new panel installation on an 11-mile section of wall within the Border Patrol's San Diego sector on Thursday. The new panels will replace the existing secondary barrier with 30-foot tall steel bollards as well as technology improvements, according to the CBP. CBP says the El Centro and San Diego Sectors have been experiencing high levels of illegal-immigrant traffic. They hope this new addition to the wall will...

The installation of 11 new miles of border wall began on Thursday in Calexico, California. The project includes the construction of 30-foot tall steel bollards and what the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency says are technology improvements... The construction start for this project was announced earlier this month, along with the new border wall project in Tecate, California. Construction for both of these projects, which total approximately 15 miles, is anticipated to continue into 2020 and are funded under a 2018 appropriation separate from President Trump's National Emergency Declaration.

A California-based federal appeals court on Monday sided with the Trump administration in lawsuits brought by state and environmental groups brought challenging the U.S. government’s authority to expedite construction of barriers along the border with Mexico. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling said the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 gives the Department of Homeland Security broad authority to construct the border barriers and waive environmental laws in the process. The ruling affirms a district court's decision that allowed the federal government to construct wall "prototypes” in San Diego and replace primary fencing near...

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen unveiled two new miles of border fencing on Friday and declared it the first new section of the President Donald Trump's border wall.

The Trump administration today (9 Oct) announced that it will waive 28 laws to speed construction of gates and other border-wall infrastructure in Cameron County, Texas, including areas adjacent to a national wildlife refuge. The waiver is intended to speed border-wall construction by sweeping aside laws that protect clean air, clean water, public lands and endangered wildlife. This is fourth time the Trump administration has used the REAL ID waiver.

Construction workers last week put up the final panel of a new border barrier in Calexico, Calif., a project touted by President Trump as the first part of his promised wall between Mexico and the U.S..... ...The estimated $18-million project replaced just over two miles of a 1990s barrier made of Vietnam War-era military aircraft landing mats with 30-foot bollards — poles placed close together to restrict entry but allow people on either side to see through. While Department of Homeland Security officials previously called existing border barriers “fences,” after construction began in Calexico, they began to refer to both...

A man was found severely injured by Border Patrol agents after he fell from the international border wall behind the Gran Plaza Outlet Mall in Calexico Sunday evening... the man fell from the 30-foot border wall while he attempted to illegally enter the United States... suffered bilateral femur fractures to both legs and a possible back injury. The man was airlifted to a medical center in Palm Springs.

Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Friday that 100 miles of border fence will be replaced with funding from the 2018 appropriations. San Diego’s sector will receive 14 miles of fencing in two different areas or 28 miles. In Calexico, two miles of a 30-foot border wall will replace two miles of pedestrian barrier. Santa Teresa, New Mexico, will see 20 miles constructed in April while the Rio Grande Valley will receive 25 miles of levee wall and 8 of border wall. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection updates the construction of a proposed border wall between the...

CALEXICO, Calif. – Construction for a border wall replacement near downtown Calexico began today. The area of the border wall replacement will be an approximately 2.25-mile section replaced with 30-foot high bollard style wall. The project covers an area from approximately the Calexico West Port of Entry extending westward beyond the Gran Plaza Outlets. The project also includes around 2.25 miles of all-weather roads. The El Centro Sector wall replacement is one of Border Patrol’s highest priority projects

U.S. authorities seized another cross-border tunnel, this time in San Diego, just weeks after a similar tunnel was uncovered in Calexico, Calif., a two-hour drive to the east. The 874-yard-long tunnel was uncovered, on Wednesday, after a months-long investigation, authorities said. The tunnel was equipped with a rail system, lighting, a ventilation system, and even a commercial elevator on the Mexico-side that could fit up to ten people, authorities said. Laura Duffy, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, said the tunnel was “a bit ingenuous” and “completely different” than any of the tunnels her office had seen before....

U.S. authorities say a Brazilian man tried to sneak into the country from Mexico by hiding in a gasoline tank. Customs and Border Protection says inspectors found the 38-year-old inside the modified tank of a 2001 Toyota Sequoia early Tuesday at a crossing in Calexico, California. An imaging device spotted anomalies in the SUV's gas tank and backseats. ...

San Carlos, CA (May 14, 2012) – In an excellent conclusion to another federal civil rights lawsuit, The Calguns Foundation has secured a settlement agreement from defendants the City of Calexico, the Calexico Police Department, Chief of Police James Neujahr, and Calexico PD officer Mario Alcaraz. The case, Ian James Farias v. City of Calexico, et al., alleged that the defendants violated Mr. Farias’ Fourth Amendment rights by improperly arresting him and seizing his lawfully-possessed shotgun. The lawsuit also alleged that the Calexico PD failed to properly train their officers on firearms issues, leading to Mr. Farias’ arrest. Mr. Farias...

Two Border Patrol agents from the El Centro Sector were assaulted by illegal aliens near downtown Calexico early Friday morning. According to Agent Keith A. Croxton, of the El Centro Sector Public Affairs Office, at approximately 2:30 a.m., agents were attempting to rescue three illegal aliens from the All American Canal, which is located approximately three miles west of the U.S. Port of Entry at Calexico, Calif., West, when the assaults occurred. “That area is one of our most dangerous areas when it comes to assaults on agents,” Croxton said. “They get rocked there quite frequently.”

The powerful earthquake that struck Baja California and the southwestern United States in April actually moved an entire California border city, NASA radar images show. A NASA aircraft flying above the fault system responsible for the April 4 earthquake in Baja California recorded how the quake deformed Earth's surface using radar. The resulting map, overlaid atop a Google Earth image of the region shows major fault systems (red lines), while recent aftershocks are denoted by yellow, orange and red dots. Calexico, Calif., near the U.S.-Mexico border, moved as much as 2 1/2 feet (80 cm) south and down into the...

The magnitude 7.2 earthquake that gave San Diego County a long, hard shake on Easter Sunday shifted areas of the earth's crust up to 31 inches in Calexico, and by as much as 10 feet near the temblor's epicenter in northern Baja, says data released today by NASA. The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) data also suggests that there was some surface rupturing along the border of Imperial and San Diego counties, where lots of aftershock activity continues to occur almost three months after the mainshock. The new findings are largely based on an airborne radar mapping program...

Inspectors red-tagged nearly 80 percent of the city's historic downtown area Monday, where roofs were caved in, windows smashed and inventory strewn about after a deadly Easter earthquake in nearby Mexico. Damage included three huge tanks that hold the city's water supply, as well as a 10 million gallon water clarifying tank, said City Manager Victor Carrillo. City officials, under a state of emergency, asked residents to limit water use to essential bathing, cooking and washing. There were no injuries reported in Calexico, the U.S. city hardest hit by the quake, but in neighboring El Centro, someone was injured when...

CALEXICO — In the past four months this border city’s officials have traveled into Mexicali about 60 times, attended meetings with their industrial commissions and chambers of commerce and met with potential Chinese, German, Spanish and Indian investors. The activity is all in the pursuit of economically stimulating the city that shares a border with a Mexican metropolis. Since making economic development its priority last year, amid a budget deficit, a screeching slowdown in the housing market (once a major revenue maker for the city because of processing fees) and the increasing need for city amenities such as parks, Calexico...

CALEXICO — Two street gangs vying for control of a human-smuggling operation here has resulted in two shootings in a dense neighborhood near the border fence, police said. A man is recovering from a bullet wound after being shot by masked gunmen. Two other men are in Imperial County jail for their suspected involvement of an attempt to murder a rival. “We be-lieve it involves illegal alien smuggling and their attempts to cut into each other’s area and operations,” Calexico police Sgt. Gonzalo Gerardo said. Human smuggling in Calexico is lucrative: smugglers could receive as much as $1,500 per head...

Dozens of children were removed from public schools in this border city under a policy that aims to ensure all students live within district boundaries. Taxpayers have repeatedly urged the Calexico Unified School District to make sure students do not cross the border from Mexico, Superintendent David Alvarez said. The district asked all 10,000 students to prove residency by Wednesday under the policy adopted last year. "We're not interested in a student's citizenship status or their legal status here in our district," Alvarez said. "What the law requires us to do is verify whether a student lives in the Calexico...

Attacks on border agents continue U.S. Border Patrol agents have been assaulted six times since April in the Calexico area as violence along the international border continues, federal authorities said Thursday.This latest report follows a March 26 case where a Mexican national allegedly preparing to throw a rock at agents was gunned down and killed by a Border Patrol agent. (See my comments below) An investigation into that shooting is ongoing, but there was no information Thursday on the status of the investigation. The latest violence, Border Patrol officials said, came Wednesday when there were two assaults against agents at...