Remember when DEMOCRATS thought a wall was a good idea?
When the Clinton administration authorized Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, orkers began constructing a secondary 10-to-12-foot steel wall to accompany an 8-foot barrier that had existed at the Southern California border since the late 80s.
Stadium lights and cameras with day and night capabilities were installed, as was an all-weather road that quite literally paved the way for 24/7 patrol by agents on horses, Humvees, and ATVs.
Segments of a cement bollard ball built in the early 2000s lie in pieces on the edge of Tijuana where unauthorized immigrants have used car jacks to spread the pillars apart and cross through. Agents said the barrier is impossible to repair because the entire section would need to be replaced and that is simply too costly.
Sometimes, a rancid smell fills the air near the San Ysidro Port of Entry due to coastal sewage making its way into the Tijuana River basin.
Under a bi-national accord reached during the Obama administration, Mexico was supposed to update its wastewater treatment plant in Tijuana but it never did. Local law enforcement officials recorded about 700 homicides in Tijuana in 2016, marking a five-year high in the area that is inked to the presence of violent transnational drug cartels.
“Before the current]wall was built, the flow was easier. People just went back and forth. Afterward, people picked a side and stayed there, since it was harder to cross,” Alejandra Castaneda, an immigration policy expert based in Tijuana, told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/longtime-border-patrol-agents-recall-when-the-wall-was-welcome/article/2639978
