A closer look
Map offers rare peek at fencing along border,
The USA TODAY Network produced the most current and comprehensive PHOENIX public map of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border by flying and driving the entire
2,000-mile border, then verifying its findings with public records, digital property maps, on-the-ground reporting and satellite imagery.
An interactive digital map, based on this extensive reporting, allows users to pick any spot on the border and cue up aerial video taken from a helicopter at that exact location, as well as see the type of fencing used along the border.
As President Trump pushes forward with his commitment to build a border wall, the map shows huge swaths of the border that are not fenced. About 650 miles of the
2,000-mile border is fenced, leaving 1,350 miles open. Of the 650 miles of fencing, about half is designed to stop only vehicles, not people.
Among the findings:
HUGE STRETCHES OF THE BORDER ARE NOT FENCED
Despite years of construction, and more than $2 billion spent, much of the border is not fenced, including most of Texas. There are wide open spaces in between stretches of steel fencing along the lower Rio Grande. Fencing starts and stops, seemingly at random when viewed from the air.
Much of the fence was built on federally owned land or through private-property seizures. Fencing often appears in confounding locations because of this and because the border is in a floodplain, limiting where fencing can go.
MUCH OF TEXAS’ FENCING SITS FAR FROM THE BORDER
The Rio Grande snakes back and forth. Because of this, sometimes border fencing is close to the river and sometimes more than a mile away. Big chunks of property in the USA sit on the “other” side of a border fence. These fence segments sometimes leave residents and property on the “outside” of the fence. People use gates or gaps to get back and forth.
EVEN WHERE THERE’S A LOT OF FENCING, IT MIGHT NOT STOP CROSSERS
The map plots all the fencing the team could see from the air, plus fencing that journalists verified on the ground. It identifies three types of fences: vehicle barriers, pedestrian barriers and others.
Long sections of the border west of El Paso have pedestrian fencing, usually steel posts up to 18 feet tall. Much more common are vehicle barriers, either Xshaped crossbars or short steel posts.
The 300-plus miles of vehicle barriers are effective at stopping cars, but anybody on foot can easily cross over, under or through. These fences often sit in harsh deserts that make crossing deadly.
Only about 350 miles of the 2,000-mile border has fencing designed to stop people.
In many cases, fence labeled as “other” on the map may not be security fence maintained by federal officials. It may be other barriers such as ranch fencing, which generally is designed to stop vehicles and livestock.
HUNDREDS OF MILES OF FENCING WERE BUILT, SO A WALL COULD BE BUILT, TOO. BUT IT WOULD BE HARD AND COSTLY TO DO SO
Steel fencing has been cut into steep hillsides and built deep into the harsh desert. It can be done. Much discussion about the idea of a wall has centered on how much it looks like a wall. If the wall is built of concrete, as Trump repeatedly said it would be during his campaign, it would be far heavier and require different construction techniques.
In August, Homeland Security officials announced they had chosen initial bidders to build prototypes. They said the prototypes would be made of reinforced concrete, 30 feet long and up to 30 feet tall, and incorporate see-through features. The actual designs have not been publicly released.
Much of the border sits hundreds of miles from the nearest big city. Building walls would require constructing roads to get there.
A helicopter carrying USA TODAY Network reporter Dennis Wagner and photographer Emmanuel Lozano takes off from the Lajitas International Airport in Texas. USA TODAY NETWORK