Race against time to build Trump’s border wall between the United States and Mexico

PUERTO PALOMAS – Weeks before Donald Trump leaves office, workers rush to build the massive steel fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that was a centerpiece of his presidency.

But if your goal is to finish the wall that winds through the desert before Joe Biden moves into the White House in January, then it’s almost certainly mission impossible.

Instead, the president-elect seems set to inherit a partially constructed barrier that stands as testimony to Trump’s tough policies toward undocumented immigrants that he once described as criminals and “rapists.”

Biden is expected to stop work on a project that he has criticized as a loss of $ 15 billion.

Yet a month after the Democratic election victory, workers were still erecting fences on a stretch of the border between the American town of Columbus in New Mexico and the Mexican town of Puerto Palomas.

Using helmets and scarves to protect themselves from the strong sun and biting wind, they removed the earth and laid the foundations for the barrier that looms over the Chihuahuan deserts.

Construction was progressing at a rate of about 120 meters a day, one of the workers told a team of AFP journalists who visited the site.

At that speed, they could build about three more miles by Trump’s last day in office, on January 19.

“They haven’t said they are going to stop. If they have already spent money, how are they going to leave it unfinished?” the worker said, before his supervisor reminded him not to speak to reporters.

BROKEN BONES

So far, 668 kilometers of the new wall has been completed along the 3,000-plus-kilometer border, according to an update from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency on Nov.30.

Most of it is reinforcing an existing wall, which used to be about four meters high, but now rises to almost 10 meters high.

Construction has focused on the most populated areas, where there are more illegal crossings.

While Trump’s promise to build a “big, beautiful wall” across the border appears to remain a broken promise for now, he has already left a legacy of broken dreams and broken bones.

Many people have been seriously injured trying to scale the barrier, said Alejandro Calderón, a 55-year-old Cuban who runs a shelter for fellow migrants.

“I’ve seen men here with head injuries, broken arms, two broken feet. People who have come here in wheelchairs,” he said.

“And not just two or three, but many.”

Time and time again he has seen despair take hold of people fleeing poverty and violence and plunging into the forbidden land.

But what surprises him most is that the injured are often returned to Mexico without receiving medical attention.

“They return them in that state and we have to give them first aid even though we don’t have doctors,” said Calderón, an engineer by profession.

‘DEATH OF FIGHT’

Domingo Barahona, a 45-year-old Guatemalan, has made two unsuccessful attempts to enter the United States.

Now waiting in Puerto Palomas, he plans to try it a third time.

Just days before, he saw two undocumented immigrants with cuts that exposed their leg bones after throwing themselves over the wall.

“They didn’t even take an aspirin while coming back from the United States,” he said.

Barahona left a 12-year-old son at home, but sees the United States as his only chance to avoid the fate of his brother, a police officer killed by “bad people.”

“I’m going to die fighting and not sitting around waiting to be killed,” he said.

For him and other migrants hoping to reach the United States, Trump’s defeat has brought hope for a reversal of his tough policies.

Biden “seems to be a very human person,” said Elienai Lopes, a 27-year-old Brazilian who has made four failed attempts to cross.

“Trump doesn’t seem to like migrants,” he said.

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