Border Wall Construction and Maintenance

November 2021

The U.S.-Mexico border extends 1,954 miles, and the U.S. government has built physical barriers along 776 miles of it. Until 2017, vehicle barriers were 4 to 6 feet high, while pedestrian barriers in urban areas typically measured up to 20 feet. Between 2017-2020, the Trump administration replaced most existing vehicle and pedestrian barriers with new 18 to 30 foot steel walls, and added some 122 miles of barriers (see below on the “Trump Wall”).

While these new walls have not prevented unauthorized crossings, they have pushed migrants further east, further away from urban areas, and towards more dangerous areas including the desert and the Rio Grande Valley. In 2021, U.S. Border Patrol recorded the most migrant deaths on record of any year, likely from exposure to extreme temperatures in areas on both sides of the border where people get lost and cannot call for rescue.

Over the years, the U.S.-Mexico border has increasingly become a site of extreme violence and militarization, as migrants are tracked, apprehended, and at times injured or killed by the U.S. Border Patrol and its parent agency Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the primary federal agencies responsible for securing the border. Reports include sexual and physical assaults of migrants, denial of basic rights to medical care and water, and a long history of separating families, peaking with the 2018 Trump administration zero-tolerance policies.

The bulk of the existing barriers along the border were originally built as a result of the 2006 Secure Fence Act. The act appropriated $4 billion for the construction of a 700-mile border fence, including 300 miles of a low vehicle barrier, lighting, observation towers, and checkpoints. The primary contractor for design and construction was Michael Baker International, a Houston-based privately-owned company, but several other companies were contracted to build parts of the wall, including publicly-traded companies Tetra Tech and Granite Construction.

The Trump Wall

In 2017, President Trump signed an executive order to build a contiguous wall along the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border, provide additional resources to Border Patrol agents, drastically increase detention along and beyond the border, expand the use of expedited removal to the entire nation while limiting the use of discretion in deciding whom to deport, and authorize more state and local officials to enforce federal immigration laws. At the time, 654 miles of border barriers were already built by previous administrations.

Estimated costs of the proposed 2017 wall ranged from $15 billion to $40 billion. In September 2017, six finalist companies constructed eight prototypes for the new wall in San Diego, California. Caddell Construction and W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Company were contracted to build two models each - one concrete and another from other materials. ELTA North America (a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries), Fisher Industries, KWR Construction, and Texas Sterling Construction built one prototype each. The stock price of Sterling Construction, the only publicly-traded company at the time, rose by 65% after it was selected to build a prototype.

CBP tested the prototypes, and in July 2018, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report exposing extensive construction challenges with the prototypes. In the end, none of the prototypes was selected.

Despite that, two of these companies, Fisher Industries and Caddell Construction, were awarded contracts for major border construction or maintenance projects. President Trump reportedly urged leaders at the Army Corps of Engineers to award contracts to Fisher Industries.

Beginning in 2019, the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Homeland Security (DHS) awarded Fisher Industries five contracts to construct at least 90 miles of the border wall in Texas and Arizona. These contracts are worth over $2 billion. In 2019, the DOD also awarded a nearly $300 million border construction contract to Gibraltar-Caddell, a joint venture between Gibraltar US and Caddell Construction. Under the contract, Gibraltar-Caddell both designed and began constructing border infrastructure in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Some steel for border wall construction was provided by Zekelman Industries, whose owner donated $1.75 million to a pro-Trump PAC. Zekelman Industries supplied the steel to Southwest Valley Constructors, an affiliate of Kiewit contracted to build 43 miles of border wall for $893 million.

Construction Paused under Biden Administration

As of January 2021 when President Biden took office, 458 of the 738 miles slated for construction under the Trump administration had been completed. Biden signed an executive order pausing construction on the border wall and called it “a waste of money.” Of the remaining miles, 206 were under construction and 74 were under contract but in the pre-construction phase.

DHS officials later released a document confirming that most existing border wall construction had stopped, but made an exception for “activities related to ensuring project sites are safe and secure in accordance with the terms and conditions of the contracts.” In Texas, county officials complained that abandoned border construction projects left vulnerabilities in levee systems that protect from hurricanes, prompting the federal government to begin levee repair in 2021 despite concern from environmentalists and activists that the project is an excuse to continue building the wall. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reportedly contracted Sullivan Land Services Co., Southwest Valley Constructors, and Gibraltar-Caddell for this project.

The Biden administration continues working on a “virtual” border wall.

State and Private Border Construction

In September 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a $2 billion bill to expand immigrant detention facilities and add more physical barriers along the state’s border with Mexico. Texas’ law allocated $750 million for construction or repair of 733 miles of barriers. As part of that spending, the Texas Facilities Commission awarded a contract worth $11 million to Michael Baker International and Huitt-Zollars to oversee and manage the border construction. Using funds allocated for the Texas Military Department, members of the military and national guard began constructing temporary wire fences until their replacement with more permanent barriers. However, a month later, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would terminate all Laredo and Rio Grande Valley, Texas border construction contracts.

In addition to Texas, Tommy Fisher, the owner of Fisher Industries, has spent millions of dollars to construct private border barriers. After spending $100,000 on lobbying for the Trump wall and submitting a prototype in 2017, Trump-allied non-profit We Build the Wall (WBTW) paid Fisher $6.9 million to build a .5 mile border in New Mexico in 2019. The next year, he spent $30 million of his own money to build a three mile fence along the border in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, and is looking for buyers as only $1.5 million in payment came from WBTW.

Ongoing Maintenance

Regardless of new border construction projects, the existing border barriers require almost constant maintenance and repair. In fact, more than 80% of the Trump Wall consisted of replacement barriers rather than new construction. In San Diego, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) counted 969 breaches between January 2019 and October 2020. In 2017, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported almost 10,000 breaches in pedestrian fencing from 2010 to 2015 with each breach costing an average of $800 to repair. In addition, the GAO highlighted several costly replacement projects in 2017. For example, in Tucson and Yuma, Arizona there were 14.1 miles of border fence replaced, costing almost $70 million, or $5 million per mile. Some of the main companies involved in border maintenance and repair are KBR Inc, Koman Construction LLC, KWR Construction Inc, and SLSCO Ltd.