(Fort Worth Star Telegram)
Chacour Koop November 19, 2019 04:54 PM
A group that’s building a border wall with private funds at the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas was told to halt construction, officials say.
We Build the Wall, a Florida-based group that boasts $25 million in donations, wants to construct the fencing to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to create the barrier on the southern U.S. border. The group has already built approximately one mile of fencing in New Mexico near El Paso, Texas, The New York Times reported.
Now the group wants to build a second wall that’s about three miles long and 18 feet tall along the Rio Grande near McAllen, Texas.
We Build the Wall submitted “general information” last week for the project to the International Boundary and Water Commission, foreign affairs officer Sally Spener told McClatchy in an email. The U.S.-Mexico commission oversees issues that arise from boundary, water, sanitation and flood control treaties between the countries.
The general information from Fisher Industries, which is contracted for the project, included a six-page document with broad floodplain information and a one-page summary of the project.
The group is clearing the private riverfront property in Mission, Texas, to make way for the wall, KGBT reported.
“This will be the first border barrier that can be built in a flood plain and it’s built to withstand the floods and there is nothing that (has) been built like it,” Brian Kolfage, founder of We Build the Wall, told KGBT. “And I think it’s going to change the way these border barriers are built in Texas