Tag Archives: border wall

Changing America reports: The $15 billion border wall built under former President Trump is being scaled by people using $5 ladders, according to Texas Monthly. The report cites U.S. Border Patrol agents, who monitor the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that crosses into southern Texas, who stated they often find ladders left behind by undocumented migrants who use them to …

USA Today reports: Rep. Madison Cawthorn has proposed a fresh alternative for the unfinished U.S.-Mexico border wall championed by former President Donald Trump: turn it into a national monument. “For four years President Trump worked to secure the southern border of the United States by constructing a wall in places where there was little to no fencing,” Cawthorn said in …

Axios reports: President Biden informed Congress on Thursday that he has terminated the national emergency over the U.S.-Mexico border that former President Trump first declared in Feb. 2019. Why it matters: Trump used the national emergency proclamation to divert billions of dollars in Pentagon funds toward building a border wall, after it became clear that Congress was opposed to additional …

The New York Times reports: Stephen K. Bannon, who received a last-minute pardon from former President Donald J. Trump after being indicted on federal charges of defrauding donors to a border wall, may yet face state charges in connection with the same scheme. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has begun investigating Mr. Bannon’s role in the fund-raising project for the …

The Associated Press reports: The Justice Department asked the justices Monday to cancel arguments on Feb. 22 in a case over President Donald Trump’s decision to divert billions of dollars in taxpayer money to construction of portions of a wall along the border with Mexico. The new administration made a similar request for arguments set for a week later over …

CNN reports: “There’s no time to start like today,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office as he began signing a stack of orders and memoranda. “I’m going to start by keeping the promises I made to the American people.” With the stroke of a pen, Biden has halted funding for the construction of Trump’s border wall, reversed his travel …

The Texas Tribune reports: A federal appeals court ruled late Friday that President Donald Trump’s use of his emergency powers to build his long-promised border wall with military funds is illegal, striking a blow to one of his signature campaign promises just weeks before the November election. The 2-1 decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes as …

Reuters reports: A federal appeals court handed a win to the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday, saying the Democratic-led chamber could proceed with a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s diversion of funds to pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Reversing a lower court judge, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in a 3-0 …

ProPublica reports: It’s not a matter of if a privately built border fence along the shores of the Rio Grande will fail, it’s a matter of when, according to a new engineering report on the troubled project. The report is one of two new studies set to be filed in federal court this week that found numerous deficiencies in the …

The Guardian reports: Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon and three co-defendants are scheduled to stand trial in May over charges that they scammed hundreds of thousands of donors into contributing to a fundraising campaign purportedly to build a private U.S.-Mexico border wall. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan on Monday announced a May 24 start date for …

Just like Roger Stone, he won’t shut up: Federal prosecutors are urging a recently indicted border-security advocate to clam up or face the possibility of a gag order limiting his ability to speak out publicly about the criminal case he is facing. Lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan wrote to a federal judge Friday to ask her to …

“He wanted to maim them and tear-gas them and shoot them. And I’m not even being hyperbolic. So we sat in a meeting one time where he was talking about how he wanted us to design the border wall. “And one day the focus was on the spikes, and he was really upset because from the pictures we were showing …

The New York Daily News reports: Steve Bannon may be facing years behind bars but at least he can do his next court appearance in his swim trunks. The right-wing flame-thrower got permission to appear via video next Monday for a Manhattan hearing on charges that he scammed donors who gave millions to a charity claiming to build a stretch …

Just in from the Justice Department: Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Philip R. Bartlett, Inspector-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the United States Postal Inspection Service (“USPIS”), announced the unsealing of an indictment charging BRIAN KOLFAGE, STEPHEN BANNON, ANDREW BADOLATO, and TIMOTHY SHEA for their roles in defrauding …

Courthouse News reports: With President Donald Trump eager to fulfill his campaign promise to build 450 miles of border wall by the end of 2020, his administration has filed 63 eminent domain lawsuits against South Texas landowners this year. One problem: Such cases can take years to resolve. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 275 miles of barriers have …

Trump is now claiming that he opposed the privately-built border wall that engineers say is in danger of falling into the Rio Grande. A reminder from ProPublica: Tommy Fisher’s New Mexico and South Texas private fence projects have gone up with financial and political help from We Build the Wall, an influential conservative nonprofit that counts former Trump political strategist …

ProPublica reports: Tommy Fisher billed his new privately funded border wall as the future of deterrence, a quick-to-build steel fortress that spans 3 miles in one of the busiest Border Patrol sectors. Unlike a generation of wall builders before him, he said he figured out how to build a structure directly on the banks of the Rio Grande, a risky …

The Hill reports: A federal appeals court in California on Friday ruled that the Trump administration’s use of Pentagon funding to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border was illegal. In a 2-1 ruling, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Trump’s diversion of defense, military and other funding — billions of dollars that were not originally earmarked for …

The Washington Post reports: A North Dakota construction firm that has received backing from President Trump has now secured the largest border wall contract ever awarded, a $1.3 billion deal to build 42 miles of black-painted fencing through the rugged mountains of southern Arizona. The company that won the contract, Fisher Sand and Gravel, has been repeatedly lauded by the …

The Daily Beast reports: Last Wednesday, while the country strained under a nationwide lockdown, the Army Corps of Engineers found time to award another border-wall contract to a company Trump personally championed—even as it’s under investigation by the Defense Department inspector general. Specifically, Fisher on Apr. 15 got $7,633,085 to build a mere “800 linear feet” of bollard barrier—that slatted …