As Governor Greg Abbott’s scheme to wall off Texas from Mexico quickly and quietly accelerates, the state has now doled out $830 million in contracts to raise over 30 miles of border barrier.
Last week, the Texas Facilities Commission approved its fifth construction contract for the project, worth $137 million, to erect nearly 7 miles of steel-bollard fencing along the border in Webb and Zapata counties. That’s on top of the over 9 miles that the state contracted to build in Webb earlier this month.
Home to the cross-border economic hub of Laredo, vast Webb County has fought to remain the only major border county in the state without a federal wall—apart from a small portion on a college campus. In the final months of the presidency of Donald Trump, his administration fast-tracked plans for several miles of wall through Laredo and the surrounding region, prompting staunch resistance from a broad and unlikely coalition of local opponents ranging from wealthy ranchers to environmentalists. Those plans were ultimately thwarted by President Joe Biden, whose administration canceled all active border wall construction contracts.
