People are baffled about a new section of border wall through a sleepy part of New Mexico
1 / 6Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Joe Romero walks next to new bollard-style U.S.-Mexico border fencing in Santa TeresaSupervisory Border Patrol Agent Joe Romero walks next to new bollard-style U.S.-Mexico border fencing in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, U.S., March 5, 2019. REUTERS/Lucy NicholsonBy Andrew Hay and Richard Cowan
"Most of us here say why spend that money? Just dead money going into the middle of the desert," said Jerry Pacheco, president and CEO of the Border Industrial Association, a nonprofit representing industries in southern New Mexico. "This was an extremely popular place for both drugs and people," said supervisory agent Joe Romero, referring to the stretch next to New Mexico Highway 9 where the rust-brown slats rise above mesquite trees and soaptree yuccas.
On Feb. 15, the president declared a national emergency, which he said would allow him to seize federal funds already appropriated for other programs and use them to build the wall. Gabriel Vasquez, a Democrat who serves on the city council of nearby Las Cruces, noted that the relatively small population in the Santa Teresa area meant the project would meet little public resistance. And the federal government already owned most of the land around the border there so did not have to spend time and money buying it from private ranchers or other landholders.
By comparison, more than 300,000 migrants were apprehended in 2017 across the entire southern border.
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