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from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come...and-cut-through-it dept.
Smugglers have found an easy way to get through the vertical steel tube Mexican border wall. From https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/smugglers-are-sawing-through-new-sections-of-trumps-border-wall/2019/11/01/25bf8ce0-fa72-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html
The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier's steel-and-concrete bollards in minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.
After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, creating an adult-size gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the top — their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling, according to engineers consulted by The Washington Post.
The taxpayer-funded barrier — so far coming with a $10 billion price tag — was a central theme of Trump's 2016 campaign, and he has made the project a physical symbol of his presidency, touting its construction progress in speeches, ads and tweets. Trump has increasingly boasted to crowds in recent weeks about the superlative properties of the barrier, calling it "virtually impenetrable" and likening the structure to a "Rolls-Royce" that border crossers cannot get over, under or through.
In other words, no one did any serious pen testing on the wall design, or it would have been obvious that with all that leverage, the top tie-in was easy to flex.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:31PM (3 children)
Which is what the Dems were saying all along - a wall is fine but without supplementation it is useless.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:58PM (2 children)
As were left-leaning independents such as myself. Except that a wall is *not* fine - it's an ecological nightmare.
I'm actually in favor of cracking down on illegal immigration - though I'd say targetting the illegal employers would be FAR more effective than trying to stop a flow of desperate people. Make it a felony with mandatory jail time to hire an illegal immigrant, and place a nice big bounty (perhaps a fast-track to citizenship) for proof of someone doing so, and you'd shut down the demand overnight. Very few people would sneak across the border if there were no money in it.
But if you're going to try to stop the flow of people, then you need to do it right - with guard patrols. There's already a natural moat along most of the border, and no place to hide. A wall adds nothing, and does so at incredible expense.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 05 2019, @05:09PM (1 child)
Never happen. The economy depends on illegal, below-minimum-wage workers. If all illegals were rounded up and deported in less than, oh, twenty years, the US economy would crater even worse than the Great Depression and take even longer to recover. All the national level politicians know this, which is why Dems never massively raise and streamline legal immigration and Republicans never do anything truly effective to secure the border.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:44AM
I fear you may be right. Which makes it all the more horrific that we're putting desperate people's lives through the wringer for the sake of political theatre.