Officials in Texas announced on Jan. 15 that construction of a 1.5-mile segment of state-built border wall was completed in Starr County.
The border wall segment was built on newly acquired land and construction of the project lasted about three months, when Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham approved the project after he saw benefits of having a barricade in rural Starr County.
"When we purchased this land, we did so intending to fortify our southern border," Buckingham said in a statement on Jan. 15. "The completion of this roughly 1.5-mile stretch of border wall is another step in the right direction in ensuring robust border security for our state," he added.
This segment of border wall —standing 30-feet tall— will also be equipped with security cameras to monitor the property, the Texas Facilities Commission said. The installation of lighting and motorized gates in the metal barricade will allow law enforcement vehicles to patrol the property, Border Report said.
Donald Trump's next "border czar" Tom Homan said last month that this specific piece of land in Starr County would be used by the federal government to help out in Trump's mass deportation plans.
Texas's struggles to build the wall
Although the completion of a 1.5-mile stretch of border wall is a step forward for Texas officials in their efforts to secure its borders, progress has been hampered by the state's struggles to secure land access.
Last August, it was revealed that a South Texas landowner sued U.S. Customs and Border Protection which tried for the second time to take his property for new border wall construction after the federal government returned it once.
Three years since Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star and with more than $3 billion approved for the wall project since 2021, a facilities commission spokesperson said that, as of June 14, only 33.5 miles of wall had been built.
According to a July report by the Texas Tribune, steel barriers cover just 4% of the more than 800 miles identified by state officials as "in need of some kind of barrier." Texas officials are aiming to erect 100 miles by the end of 2026, at a rate of about a half-mile per week.
According to TFC officials, the earliest wall construction has cost roughly $25 million to $30 million per mile. When completed, that would amount to $20 billion to $24 billion for the entire 805-mile span seen as "in need of some kind of barrier."
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