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Agencies

He’s building a wall - and they’re cutting holes right through it.
Migrants and smugglers have succeeded in cutting through US President Donald Trump’s “virtually inpenetrable” border wall using cordless saws that cost as little as US$100 apiece at hardware stores, border agents and officials told The Washington Post.
Trump administration officials admitted being aware of “a few instances” in which human smugglers managed to breach rebuilt sections of the US$10 billion wall that Trump once famously promised Mexico would pay for.
The widely available saws can cut through the wall’s steel bollards within a matter of minutes. The nine-metre-tall panels can then be easily pushed forward, allowing people to pass through.
Most of the reported border crossings involving cuts through the wall have occurred in the busy area near San Diego.

Trump touts the wall as almost impossible to get through and has brought reporters along to show off what he calls the “Rolls-Royce” of walls.
On Saturday, he brushed of reports of smugglers cutting through his signature wall, saying it can be “easily fixed.”
“We have a very powerful wall. But no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything, in all fairness,” Trump told reporters in Washington prior to his departure for New York.
“Cutting is one thing, but it’s easily fixed. One of the reasons we did it the way we did it, it’s very easily fixed. You put the chunk back in.”
Donald Trump calls his new border wall a ‘world-class security system’ you could fry an egg on
Trump has diverted billions in taxpayer funds that Congress approved for other uses to rebuild sections of the wall.
Some of the damage has happened in areas where construction crews have yet to complete the installation of electronic sensors that, once operational, will more quickly detect the vibrations sawing produces on the bollards, officials said.
They also said one of the main advantages of the steel bollard system, was that damaged panels can be easily repaired or replaced.
Ronald Vitiello, the former US Border Patrol chief who was acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement until his removal in April, characterised the breaches as “poking and prodding” by cartel smuggling crews.

“The cartels will continue to innovate, and they’re not just going to leave San Diego because the wall gets better,” Vitiello said.
“That’s life on the border.”
In the San Diego area, smugglers have figured out how to cut the bollards and return them to their original positions, disguising the breaches in the hope that they will go unnoticed and can be reused for repeated passage.
Agents said they have learned to drive along the base of the structure looking for subtle defects, testing the metal by kicking the bollards with their boots.
Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall could take 10 years to build, even with 10,000 workers
If damage is detected, welding crews are promptly sent to make fixes. The smugglers, however, have returned to the same bollards and cut through the welds, agents say, because the metal is softer and the concrete at the core of the bollard already has been compromised.
The smugglers also have tried to trick agents by applying a type of putty with a colour and texture that resembles a weld, making a severed bollard appear intact.
The San Diego area is one of the most lucrative for narcotics smugglers or those bringing in migrants, who are willing to pay thousands of dollars apiece to reach the United States.
Mexican deportees with homes and jobs on the US side of the border are among some of the best-paying customers because they often have assets and are desperate to return.

The Trump administration has so far completed 122km (76 miles) of new barriers, all of it in areas like San Diego where the structure has replaced older, shorter and, in some cases, dilapidated fencing.
Another 254km of barrier is under construction, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the agency said 444km were in a “preconstruction” phase.
The administration remains on track to complete about 720km of barriers by the end of next year, CBP acting commissioner Mark Morgan said.
The latest construction data obtained by The Washington Post show that the administration has finished just 2 per cent of the barrier planned for stretches of border in Texas, where plans call for 267km of new fencing. Almost all of that barrier would be built on private land that the government has yet to acquire.
Trump campaigned for construction of the barrier, but nearly US$10 billion that his administration has budgeted for the project has been taxpayer money from US funding sources, primarily the US Defence Department.
The Washington Post, Agence France-Presse, Tribune News Service


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Donald Trump

Smugglers cut holes in Trump’s US$10 billion wall with US$100 tools. Trump says that’s ‘easily fixed’

US President Donald Trump has made building a wall to stem the flow of migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico a key plank of his presidency. File photo: AFP

Work continues on the new 30-foot-high, bollard wall along the U.S.-Mexico border on the Colorado River near County 11th Street, Friday, Nov. 1, 2019. When the project is complete, the new wall will stretch for five miles along the border.(Randy Hoeft/The Yuma Sun via AP)

Aerial view of US President Donald Trump's border wall prototypes as seen from Tijuana, in Baja California state, Mexico, on January 7, 2019. - US President Donald Trump stood firm Sunday on his demand for billions of dollars to fund a border wall with Mexico, claiming "tremendous" support inside his camp on the contentious issue which has forced a government shutdown now entering its third week. (Photo by Guillermo Arias / AFP)

A portion of the wall on the US-Mexico border is seen from Chihuahua State in Mexico. Photo: AFP

Pentagon approves US$3.6 billion for Donald Trump’s border wall and ‘ego’

A rugged uphill section of the US-Mexico border wall that runs through Organ Pipe National Monument. Photo: AP

President Donald Trump arrives with Vice President Mike Pence, and Gen. John "Jay" Raymond, for a ceremony to establish the U.S. Space Command in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

FILE - In this March 11, 2019 photo, construction crews replace a section of the primary wall separating San Diego, above right, and Tijuana, Mexico, below left, seen from Tijuana, Mexico. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has approved the use of $3.6 billion in funding from military construction projects to build 175 miles of President Donald Trump’s wall along the Mexican border. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

Trump’s ‘steel slat’ Mexico border wall design was sawed through in Homeland Security test, report says

Men from Mexico climb the US-Mexico border wall in Playas de Tijuana. File photo: AFP

An image shared by Donald Trump on Twitter on January 5 that appears to depict a steel slat border wall, a design he favours. Photo: Twitter / @realDonaldTrump

An excavator works on the 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) steel wall between El Paso, Texas in the United States and Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua State, Mexico, on January 9, 2019. (Photo by Herika Martinez / AFP)

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World

United States & Canada


Smuggling gangs have used readily available commercial power tools to cut through the wall, creating gaps that people and drugs can be moved through



US President Donald Trump brushed off reports of smugglers cutting through his signature wall on the Mexican border, saying it can be ‘easily fixed’.
