BROWNSVILLE, Texas (Border Report) — The Texas National Guard members worked fast Thursday reinforcing fencing with concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande here in deep South Texas.
The 12-foot-tall wire fence panels are laced with a 3-foot looping layer of concertina wire that is designed to prevents migrants from trying to climb it and illegally cross from Mexico.
It’s called an anti-climb barrier, and Brownsville is the first Texas border city to get this new fencing as part of Texas’ Operation Lone Star, Texas National Guard Maj. Mike Perry said as he took Border Report on an exclusive first-look tour of the project.
A total of 6,000 feet of anti-climb concertina wire fencing is slated to be built. They’re about halfway through after starting near the Gateway International Bridge four days ago, Texas National Guard Capt. Chris Daniel said.
Daniel leads the team that is building the fencing, as well as spooling concertina wire on the muddy banks of the Rio Grande.
Texas National Guard Capt. Chris Daniel, left, leads a team that is building concertina wire reinforced fencing on the Rio Grande in Brownsville, Texas. (Sandra Sanchez/Border Report Photos)
Currently, they are constructing the barrier across from a migrant camp where about 1,000 asylum seekers live in Matamoros, Mexico.
The team works quickly and installs about 15 panels per hour. Each panel is 8 feet wide and 12 feet tall and tied together to form a solid barrier.
They do this by laying the fence on the ground and spooling the concertina wire around it. Then it’s put on plastic ballasts “that we’re able to fill with water to instill more stability and rigidity to it – some weight at the bottom so it’s not easy to push over or pull down,” Daniel said.
“What it’s doing is reinforcing the concertina (wire) that’s already there on the bank to try to stop the migrant traffic that’s moving through in between these ports of entry here,” he said.
Signs put up in Spanish on the Texas banks warn migrants not to try to cross the concertina wire.
But as far as the eye can see, colorful clothing, blankets and other fabric covers the concertina wire that is on the ground.
Perry says they use the clothing and fabric to climb over the concertina wire that’s on the ground.
He added that many people get injured in the process, and they hope that the concertina wire on the fence will deter migrants from trying to climb over it.
“Nobody is attempting to cross where the barrier is because it adds that extra level of barrier to prevent people from coming in and that’s what this mission is: prevention and deterring people from coming in,” Perry said.
A quarter mile south of where the crew was working Thursday to install the fencing, a group of about 50 migrants stood trapped in between the concertina wire that’s on the ground and the cold waters of the Rio Grande.
One Haitian man held a month-old baby and told Border Report in Spanish that they had been there since 2 a.m. and didn’t understand why they couldn’t enter the United States.
National Guard were on the scene watching the group and Border Report was told that U.S. Border Patrol would be notified.
“When they come in contact with migrants they radio to others. We’re strictly here to place the barriers,” Daniel said.
Migrants who illegally cross in this area are processed at a mobile processing facility on the other side of the levee that’s come to be called Camp Monument.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and the Border Patrol’s former chief visited the area on May 5, just days before Title 42 was lifted. At that time, this area was the epicenter for migrant crossings, but the numbers dropped over the summer.
Lately, however, Perry says it’s been picking up.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.