The Department of Homeland Security says new segments of its smart-wall system are being built along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and Texas — marking the latest funding allocation for new border wall.
DHS says it's awarded five new contracts and a total of $3.3 billion to contractors building the so-called smart wall. It's a secondary barrier that the agency says will include roads, detection technology, cameras, lighting and a physical wall made out of steel bollards.
The federal government has spent $8 billion on the secondary wall project so far — part of larger immigration and border funding baked into the GOP-crafted tax and spending package.
In Arizona, Fisher Sand and Gravel is getting roughly $1.4 billion to build 19 miles of new wall and secondary wall and 136 miles of detection technology.
-
The bipartisan group is asking the department to speed up an environmental review process for what could become a major overhaul of the busy crossing. -
Audiences on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border watched the same movie just feet from each other during the Film on the Fence event. -
The Nogales International Film Festival is going on right now, and each night events will culminate in a film screening that is truly cross-border. -
The House Natural Resources Committee met to review President Donald Trump’s funding proposal for the Interior Department, but Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva took that opportunity to talk about Las Playas Intaglio. -
Federal agents are investigating the deaths of six people thought to be immigrants found inside a shipping container at a Union Pacific rail yard near the border with Mexico in Laredo, Texas, on Sunday as a "potential human smuggling event."
