Southern Barrier, Part 14

As we continue eastward, the border barrier again becomes nothing. This part of the border barrier is at the California / Arizona state line.

The barrier consists of an aging white vehicle stop bar. This barrier is about 100 feet north of the border. There is nothing -- not even a fence -- behind the camera.

Because of the Border Patrol's underfunding, on weekends, Mexican gangs race north and into throngs of American campers. At other times they blend with the off road vehicle enthusiasts to hand off sacks of drugs.

The barrier continues in this condition for even a hundred miles. Well east of the Arizona state line there is now a modicum of funding to stop some of the drug convoys. Drug convoys race north from the town of San Luis, Sonora, Mexico and can make it to an Arizona highway in minutes. These convoys can be made of even twenty off road vehicles. Most get through.

Just north of this part of the border is a vast military complex with bombing ranges. Other Mexican gangs cross onto those ranges and steel the explosives from unexploded ordnance, and then take those explosives back to Mexico.

This machine is being used to vibrate steel pipes into the ground about every four feet along the border. The United States has surrendered several feet of US territory by constructing the barrier well north of the actual border. Afterall, we wouldn't want our workers to be arrested by Mexico as "illegal aliens."

This machine accepts a tube from a waiting forklift and then rotates and places the tube on the ground. The machine has placed an auger into the tube and spins the auger as it also vibrates the tube downwards into the ground. Once placed at the desired depth the machine rises, rotates the head toward the forklift and accepts another tube.