Sorting through complicated legal and property ownership issues slowed down border wall construction in Texas during the first Trump administration. “This border wall actually makes every single agent more effective,” said CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott during a February news conference. Border residents say that in regions as remote as the Big Bend, maintaining roads for agents, greater broadband access and other technology can enhance border security better than a wall. “A jaguar is not going to climb a nine-meter border wall,” Flesch said. The water level there fell as groundwater was pumped to build the first border wall.
