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EDINBURG, Texas (CBP) – Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol (RGV) agents disrupted three human smuggling events and encountered two large groups resulting in 322 apprehensions. On April 26, Falfurrias Border Patrol Checkpoint agents, after a K-9 alert, referred a truck pulling a flatbed trailer carrying large metal sided boxes to the secondary inspection area. Agents observed a vent, approximately 16 inches by 6 inches on one of the boxes and removed the vent to reveal 40 migrants in a seated position trapped inside. The metal sided box had to be broken apart by unscrewing multiple bolts using a power...

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Friday that the construction of the state’s border wall has begun. “Texas has officially started building its own border wall,” Abbott tweeted. “Biden allows open border policies and refuses to enforce laws passed by Congress to secure the border and enforce immigration laws,” The governor added. “Texas is stepping up to do the federal government’s job.” Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin posted pictures of the first panels on Friday. “Texas has officially started building its own border wall. The first wall panels have gone up in Starr County in the RGV. State land,...

State commissioners unanimously approved a design-build contract that will not exceed $162 million for a total of eight miles of border wall that will fill gaps between portions of the federal border wall. The contract was awarded to Posillico Civil, Inc., a 75-year-old New York-based engineering firm that has worked on other border projects. Commissioners said the first portion of the wall will be constructed on state-owned land in Starr County, with a 1.2-mile extension on private land. Commissioners said the program manager, Michael Baker Huitt-Zollars Joint Venture, is pursuing agreements with private landowners to allow construction of other portions...

EDINBURG, Texas – Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol (RGV) agents arrested a criminal migrant armed with a pistol and a bowie knife. A Mara-Salvatrucha gang member and a previously convicted sex offender were also arrested in separate events.

As hurricane season approaches, officials in deep South Texas are increasingly worried about breaches in the levee system that were created to facilitate border-wall construction, which the Biden administration has since halted. There are at least four breaches in the levee system that protects this low-lying area in Hidalgo County from flooding, Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez said on Wednesday morning, standing at the base of a mammoth break in the 25-foot-tall dirt levee. The levee was built under the 2006 Safe Fence Act to protect this delta region from Rio Grande flooding. However, the dirt levee also had been...

The head of a nonprofit that owns a coveted birding preserve in remote western Starr County told Border Report on Friday afternoon that its board has decided not to sell the land to the Trump administration for border wall construction... despite the organization having already agreed on a “set price” with the federal government... The board’s emergency meeting came after Border Report on Thursday was first to report that a deal had been reached for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to acquire the Salineño Wildlife Preserve’s full 2.5 acres. The news brought outcry... Valley Land Fund on Friday afternoon...

Border wall construction continued at full tilt Tuesday (10 Nov) in South Texas... Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees billions of dollars worth of government border wall contracts along the Southwest, confirmed to Border Report in an emailed statement that construction of the border wall infrastructure system will continue on projects that are already funded. “CBP continues with the construction of new border wall system with funding that has been received through Fiscal Year (FY) 2020. The majority of contracts have been awarded and construction is well under way for the approximately 738 miles funded to date......

Something different happened along the Rio Grande. Republicans ran up their numbers in the overwhelmingly Hispanic, reliably Democratic counties along the border... The shift extended through the more than 1,200-mile border, from the populous lower delta of Brownsville and McAllen to the sparse ranchland near Laredo and the high desert of El Paso. Biden won majorities in most counties, but by dramatically smaller margins than Hillary Clinton in 2016. Clinton won Starr and Hidalgo counties by commanding margins — 60 and 40 percentage points, respectively. Biden won Starr County by five points and Hidalgo by 17. The bluest of blue...

The federal government filed a flurry of land condemnation lawsuits during the past week — one of many signs that work on the border wall may be accelerating in the Rio Grande Valley. From January to July, the federal government filed 23 land condemnation lawsuits in the McAllen Division of the Southern District of Texas, which covers Hidalgo County and Starr County. In the last week of August, the government filed nine more. "This is so inherently political for the White House, for the Department of Justice, and we know the president has made this a high priority," said attorney...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), has awarded a contract to construct approximately 15 miles of new border wall system within U.S. Border Patrol’s (USBP) Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector located in Starr County, Texas. This project will include a 30 foot tall steel bollard wall, all-weather roads, lighting, enforcement cameras, and other related technology to create a complete enforcement zone. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2020, pending availability of real estate, in locations where no barriers currently exist. The contract was awarded to Southwest Valley Constructors Co. for...

The Owner of Fisher Industries, who is behind the border fence project in Mission, spoke with CBS 4 on Tuesday and wants to clear up the misconceptions about his border security plans. Tommy Fisher, president and CEO of Fisher Sand & Gravel Co., which is based out of Tempe, AZ, purchased three miles of river front in Mission from landowner, Lance Neuhaus. Despite there being a state and federal temporary restraining order against Fisher Industries, Fisher said they are allowed to prepare for the construction of the border fence. "We're allowed to dig the trench, where eventually the wall will...

President Donald Trump aims to build (has already ready funded) 166 miles of border barrier in Texas... Land acquisition in the Rio Grande Valley is about to enter a new phase this week, as U.S. attorneys began filing initial petitions in court while making cash offers to property owners, according to Justice Department officials with knowledge of the process. On Friday, the federal government filed its first land acquisition case to condemn nearly 13 acres of private property in the Rio Grande Valley, a parcel near the river levee in Hidalgo County. The owner was offered $93,449 in compensation for...

Border Wall System Construction Rio Grande Valley, Texas.

We Build the Wall, boasted on social media Thursday that it has begun riverfront land clearing on banks of the the Rio Grande in Mission, Texas, to build a 3.5-mile border barrier on private property. This is believed to be the first private wall construction in South Texas by this organization, which earlier this year built a section of wall near El Paso in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The owner of the 6,000-acre riverfront property, Lance Neuhaus, confirmed to Border Report on Thursday that he has given the tax-exempt organization We Build the Wall permission to be on his property.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is seeking your input concerning the construction of a levee/border wall system in Rio Grande Valley (RGV), Texas. CBP is accepting comments until Monday, August 26, 2019. CBP proposes to design and construct approximately 95 miles of new border and levee wall system in Starr, Hidalgo, and Cameron counties, including the design and construction of (1) approximately 52 miles of border wall system in Starr County, Texas; (2) approximately 24 miles of levee wall system in Hidalgo County, Texas; and (3) approximately 19 miles of levee/border wall system in Cameron County, Texas.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials announced in a news release Tuesday that the agency has awarded a new contract for 3 miles of steel bollard fencing in Starr County. The $42,860,000 contract, which was awarded to Kiewit Infrastructure West Co. with fiscal year 2019 Homeland Security appropriations (not subject to any of the lawsuits going on). (Construction) is expected to begin in August. The awarded new barriers... would be placed on federal land between Salineño and Escobares, but not within city limits... located 5 miles north of Salineño, and 5 miles west of Escobares. CBP said the 3 miles...

Gov. Rick Perry to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to RGV Texas Gov. Rick Perry plans to announce he will activate the Texas National Guard at a news conference Monday in Austin, said state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen. Hinojosa did not have details of the effort, but an internal memo from another state official’s office said the governor planned to call about 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the Rio Grande Valley — at a cost of about $12 million per month. The memo was provided to The Monitor on the condition of anonymity because the information is...