I Found The Border Wall Prototypes!
While in Tijuana I was curious to see the new prototypes up close.
There are 8 prototypes being constructed by a handful of construction companies picked by DHS. These are being constructed for bids ONLY. The wall construction has yet to commence. You will however read about various areas of the already existing wall being renovated and or repaired.
Most people who do not live near the border are unaware that a wall already exists.
Some areas are double fenced with an insane amount of barbed wire. The extreme rural areas that do NOT have a physical wall made of fence or bricks, employs a "digital wall" composed of about 8,000 cameras, which monitor the southern fence and ports of entry. Its resources also include more than 11,000 underground sensors, 107 aircraft, eight drones, 175 mobile surveillance units and 84 boats.
Las Torres Neighborhood of East Tijuana, Baja, MX
As we were trying to find the prototypes location I wanted to capture what the environment looks like in this particular part of Tijuana. Civilians are unable to get close to this project on the U.S. side of the border. There is an area about 1.5 miles from the site designated for protestors. Other than that, you will be stopped and questioned by CBP.
Top: An endless line of semi-trucks await entry into the U.S. from Mexico while a man is seen pushing his car that has died unexpectedly.
Middle: Once we arrived to the area where we believed the prototypes were being built we drove through an extremely poor neighborhood. Much worse than the main area of the city.
Bottom Right: We almost gave up on finding the prototypes because the roads were too broken, uneven, and unstable. We took one last road that dead ends into a junk yard and the border wall. Around that corner were the prototypes.
It was partial luck that we found it. We knew of the vicinity but it was hard to navigate as you can see in these pics I snapped along the way. Most of the roads were very unstable consisting of only dirt and rock.
It was just like a scene from Mad Max!!
Lastly, after snapping pics of the prototypes, as we were leaving we noticed some movement tucked inside the edge of the junk yard. If you look toward the center of the pic you can see a little person. That is a child, a child around the age of 8 who lives there. As we drove passed him an entire family emerged from the twisted metal and car parts.
We stopped as the women walked up to the car. Etel [My girlfriend] rolled her window down. She then handed the woman a bag full of canned foods she had left over in her car from all the donations she was sending down to her family in Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca [Epicenter of 8.0 Quake last month]. Which is a great segue into my next blog about witnessing the ✌🏼support and ❤️ love from Tijuana for the earthquake victims in the south.
Stay Tuned...