Desolate construction zones, stray building materials and abandoned heavy machinery: This is what remains along parts of the US-Mexico border nearly four months after President Biden ordered all construction on the wall to stop.
More than 450 miles of the border wall was erected under the Trump administration, which included replacing hundreds of miles of existing fencing and constructing 80 miles of new steel barriers.
But Biden, who had vowed not to build ‘another foot’ of Trump’s flagship wall, signed an executive order that immediately paused all construction when he took office on January 20.
Nearly four months on and as Biden faces a growing migrant crisis, DailyMail.com has captured eerie drone footage and images of what parts of Arizona and Texas now look like after the once bustling construction sites were ordered to shutdown.
Dozens of trucks and diggers that once crawled over rocky mountainsides are now parked in deserted construction zones in remote parts of Arizona.
Huge piles of steel fencing and other construction materials, including pipes, lie stacked on the ground.
A long stretch of rural land was carved out in the Patagonia Mountains of Arizona, just outside Nogales, in preparation for the border wall before construction was halted
Drone footage captured by DailyMail.com shows the abandoned construction sites along the US-Mexico border nearly four months after President Biden ordered all construction on the wall to stop. Pictured is a deserted construction site in the Pajarito Mountains in Arizona
More than 450 miles of the border wall was erected under the Trump administration, which included replacing hundreds of miles of existing fencing and constructing 80 miles of new steel barriers. Pictured above is the border wall running through Arizona’s Pajarito Mountains
Biden, who had vowed not to build ‘another foot’ of Trump’s flagship wall, signed an executive order that immediately paused all construction when he took office on January 20. Pictured above is the half-built wall near Guadalupe Canyon in Arizona
A section of border wall that was being replaced in Del Rio, Texas, has been left unfinished and construction equipment has been abandoned in the wake of Biden’s executive order
DailyMail.com has captured eerie drone footage of what parts of Arizona and Texas now look like since the once bustling construction sites were ordered to shutdown. More than 450 miles of the border wall was erected under the Trump administration, which included replacing hundreds of miles of existing fencing and constructing 80 miles of new steel barriers
The footage also shows large portions of the half-built wall snaking through the mountainside and sections that have already been cleared to make way for the barriers.
Remnants of the old border wall that was in the process of being replaced also lie discarded in areas ranging from the Coronado National Monument to Guadalupe Canyon and the Pajarito and Patagonia Mountains.
Evidence of how construction was immediately abandoned is also clear in places like Del Rio, Texas, where small barricades have been erected around half-finished sections of the wall and large diggers remain motionless.
The town was supposed to include a two mile section of the border wall. So far, just a couple of hundreds yards have been erected.
Diggers remain on site and trenches that had already been dug are unfilled.
Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, who oversees Del Rio, is now demanding answers given the condition the wall was left in.
‘We have a fence protecting the fence and a temporary fence to protect our borders,’ Martinez told DailyMail.com.
‘The original fence protected our community. I’d like to see it complete or put it back to the way it was.
‘You can’t leave it like this forever. Is there a plan?’
Construction materials lie stacked on the ground in the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona
Construction materials lie abandoned on the ground near Guadalupe Canyon in Arizona where the border wall has only been half built
This stretch of land had already been cleared in preparation for the border wall to be erected. Steel barricades can be seen above lying by the side of the path after Biden halted construction
The border barrier in this stretch of the Guadalupe Canyon in Arizona can be seen half built. Other stretches of the rural area had already been cleared out before the order was given to halt construction
Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, who oversees the Texas border town of Del Rio, is now demanding answers given the condition the wall was left in
Diggers remain on site and trenches that had already been dug remain unfilled in Del Rio, Texas
Del Rio was supposed to include a two mile section of the border wall. So far, just a couple of hundreds yards have been erected. Pictured above is an abandoned digger that has been fenced off after Biden paused construction
Martinez said construction on the portion of the wall in Del Rio started in June last year but abruptly stopped when Biden was sworn in.
‘As soon as this administration took over the job stopped,’ Martinez said.
‘The contractors were given about a week to make sure these locations were safe to the public… work has not continued since.
‘These sections of fences were left unfinished.’
Sergio Galindo, who supplied construction materials for parts of the Del Rio wall, said he had been working on it for about three months before it stopped.
‘It looks really bad. You’ve got an old section of the fence… you’ve got a couple hundred feet of new fence, you got a few more hundred feet of temporary fence and then another mile and a half of old fence,’ he said.
At the time construction stopped, Galindo said there was at least 120 labor contractors on the job.
‘All of a sudden it was down the pipeline,’ he said.
Biden’s order to stop construction left billions of dollars of work unfinished – but still under contract.
There has been no word yet from the White House on what Biden plans to do with contracts for wall construction that had already been awarded but have yet to be completed.
Portions of the half built wall can be seen above near Guadalupe Canyon in Arizona. The stretch of already flattened land goes through jaguar sanctuaries, national forests and lands important to Native American communities
This construction site in the Patagonia Mountains of Arizona lies abandoned in the wake of Biden’s executive order. Heavy machinery and building supplies remain in the area
Huge piles of streel fencing remains stacked up in Arizona’s San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge where construction of the border wall was already underway
Construction materials, including pipes and cement barricades, lie abandoned in this site near Arizona’s Guadalupe Canyon
Huge piles of steel fencing and other construction materials, including pipes, lie stacked on the ground in parts of Arizona
Heavy machinery, including dozens of trucks and diggers, that once crawled over rocky mountainsides are now parked in deserted construction zones in remote parts of Arizona
Large amounts of construction materials are deserted in the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge near Guadalupe Canyon
Construction materials lie abandoned on this site in Arizona’s Patagonia Mountains following Biden’s executive order
Prior to Trump leaving the White House, the government had spent $6.1 billion of the $10.8 billion in work it signed contracts to have done, a Senate Democratic aide told the Associated Press at the time.
The full amount under contract would have extended Trump’s wall to 664 miles. Of the 1,954-mile US-Mexico border, barriers currently cover 706 miles of it.
In his 2016 presidential run, Trump had originally vowed to build a ‘big, beautiful wall’ on the border that would be 1,000 miles long.
It comes as the Pentagon said late last month that it was canceling all border wall construction projects paid for with military funds.
Trump had ordered the diversion of billions of dollars in Pentagon money to pay for the wall after being denied funding by Congress.
‘Consistent with the president’s proclamation, the Department of Defense is proceeding with canceling all border barrier construction projects paid for with funds originally intended for other military missions,’ deputy Pentagon spokesman Jamal Brown said last month.
Brown said the returned funds would be used for deferred military construction projects.
A border wall construction site appears to be deserted near Guadalupe Canyon in Arizona
Construction machinery lies abandoned on a long stretch of rural land that was already carved out in the Patagonia Mountains of Arizona
The Biden administration has announced two new border-related projects.
One will address soil erosion in a 14-mile stretch of barrier construction by the Trump administration near San Diego, California. The other will see holes in the Rio Grande Valley levee system left by the wall construction project filled in.
Since Biden took office, there has been a rush of people trying to illegally get into the country and the number of children in detention centers has doubled over the last two months.
Now, there are 21,000 children in US custody.
Under the Biden administration, minors are allowed to stay in the United States with relatives.
Neither the President nor Vice President Kamala Harris has visited the border in the four months since taking office.
It comes as US residents who live along the border are begging the government to put a stop to the illegal crossings.
A Texas farmer found five abandoned girls, all aged under 7, from Honduras and Guatemala on his land on Sunday.
Jimmy Hobbs, the 75-year-old farmer and his wife Katie gave an interview to Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales which was posted on Twitter after the pair submitted photos and videos to social media groups that campaign for tighter border control.
Three young migrants hold hands as they run in the rain at an intake area after turning themselves in upon crossing the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday night in Roma, Texas
Migrants line up at an intake area after turning themselves in upon crossing the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday in Roma, Texas
These five little girls from Honduras and Mexico were found on Sunday by a Texas onion and watermelon farmer Jimmy Hobbs, who was making a round of his land in Quemado, which borders the Mexican state of Coahuila. The photo was posted on Twitter by Congressman Tony Gonzalez on Sunday after first being shared on border Facebook groups
The youngest of the girls is so little she can’t walk yet. She was naked when the farmer arrived and the girls didn’t have any diapers for her either. She is shown being cradled by one of the farm workers’ wives
They also called on the wife of one of their workers, who speaks Spanish, to comfort the girls. They are now in CBP custody, along with 21,000 other kids
Gonzalez also shared a gut-wrenching image of the girls lying in dirt. In one of the videos she shared, Katie fumed in the background: ‘These children dumped out on the side of the river here on our farm.
‘If this doesn’t make you mad and make you want to take to the streets, I don’t know what will. They have no mother, no father, no nothing. This is one of our workers’ wives right here taking care of this tiny one. No one with these children.’
Hobbs is an onion and watermelon farmer who has lived on the land he owns his entire life. The farm is in Quemado, Texas, which sits on the border with the Mexican state of Coahuila.
He said that he believes the girls would have died if he hadn’t found them, and that the situation at the border is the worst it has been in the 75 years he has lived on the farm.
He and his wife warned that there will be ‘thousands more’ who get into perilous danger and die this summer trying to illegally cross the border as temperatures rise and President Biden continues to shrug off the crisis and leave it to Vice President Kamala Harris to handle instead.
Meanwhile US border agents encountered 9 percent fewer minor migrants trying to cross the border last April after record numbers in March but overall apprehensions reached a 15-year high.
Data showed that the border patrol agency encountered 178,622 undocumented immigrants seeking to enter the United States in April, surpassing March’s total by 5,274.
Border agents encountered 17,171 unaccompanied children, down 9 percent from 18,890 in March when a record number of unaccompanied migrant children entered U.S. custody along the southern border.
That figure is still well above the previous high of 11,475 reported in May 2019.