Biden’s decision to halt Trump’s wall leaves border rancher with field of decaying steel.

Millions of Dollars of Steel Left to Waste in the High Desert

In the vast expanse of the high desert in Deming, New Mexico, lies a forgotten treasure trove of construction materials. For two and a half years, these materials have been neglected by the federal government, left behind after President Joe Biden halted border wall construction initiated by his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Fourth-generation cattle rancher Russell Johnson has witnessed this neglect firsthand. Every day, as he drives his truck down the dirt roads behind his house, he is greeted by fields of steel beams, each over 30 feet long, scattered across his property. But the most striking sight is the nearly mile-long hole in the border wall, just a few hundred feet away.

“I’d much rather see this going in gaps than just sitting out here,”

Johnson laments the government’s failure to clean up what it left behind. Not only is it an eyesore in the beautiful landscape, but it also limits where his livestock can graze. Border residents like Johnson are unable to move the abandoned materials, which have become a warehouse for canceled projects.

“I don’t think they have any idea,” Johnson said when asked if the White House or Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas knew about the abandoned materials. “Secretary Mayorkas has never been out here.”

Promised a Wall, Left with a Backyard Wasteland

The wall, standing 30 feet tall, stretches for 100 miles along Highway 9 from El Paso, Texas, to central New Mexico. However, on Johnson’s property, there is a mile-long gap where the wall was never completed. This gap, along with a smaller opening, has become an opportunity for drug smugglers and Mexican cartels to infiltrate the United States undetected.

Johnson’s disappointment is not just about the unfinished wall. He had hoped that the wall would prevent cattle in Mexico from crossing into the U.S. through cut barbed wire fencing. The wall would have alleviated the responsibility of ranchers like Johnson in maintaining an international boundary and protecting their livestock from diseases.

“One thing this wall has done is alleviated the responsibility off of us in maintaining an international boundary,” Johnson said. “Anybody that ranched along the border that had barbed wire fence — you were basically the first line of security between any [livestock] disease or outbreak of any sort coming out of Mexico into the U.S. And a lot of people don’t realize that — even within our own industry — the ranchers along the border were keeping not just our ranches safe but our industry as a whole because we were maintaining that.”

‘Rusting Away’ in the Backyard Wasteland

The backyard wasteland is filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of once-pristine eight-foot-wide panels of slatted steel beams. These materials were meant to be used for all-weather roads along the wall, improving the safety of Border Patrol agents. However, they now sit abandoned, weathering away.

Instead of being put to use, the rocks from the nearby mountainside, which were supposed to be crushed into gravel for the roads, remain in piles on Johnson’s ranch and his neighbor’s land. Construction crews are now using canceled wall funds to pave cement roads over the Chepas Mountain, while dozens of floodgates in the wall remain welded shut or frequently cut off by smugglers.

Two Broken Promises

The Biden administration’s decision to halt the border wall project has left Johnson and other border residents in the dark. No one has communicated with them about the fate of the abandoned materials or a plan to restore their land. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has proposed plans to wrap up the projects, including closing gaps, installing gates, and completing erosion control measures.

CBP has also promised to clean up the sites where materials remain, removing all construction materials and restoring staging areas to their original condition. However, the process has been slow, and Johnson is concerned that the taxpayer money spent on these materials will go to waste.

“It just doesn’t sit well with me that this is taxpayer money just sitting out here and rusting away in the New Mexico desert,” Johnson said. “This is brand-new metal. It’s already been fabricated and stuff, ready to be installed in the border wall, but the government — rather than putting it in and installing it like it was intended to be — they’re going to sell it for scrap, which is going to … make this worth pennies on the dollar compared to what it could have been.”

Johnson hopes that the materials can be used elsewhere on the border, rather than being sold for scrap. However, the Department of Homeland Security and CBP have not responded to requests for comment.

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