Don’t get me wrong — I am all for an effective wall along the southern border — but an irony has developed about the scandal-ridden, privately funded wall on our side of the Rio Grande.
This is the one that has led to charges against Steve Bannon and his allies for defrauding donors, as reported by ProPublica.
The irony: The (apparently) badly designed wall is at the edge of the river and has led to erosion along our side of the river to such an extent that it is moving the Rio Grande in the direction of Texas, so much so that it may move the international boundary, giving Mexico a bit more land and taking it from the U.S. This segment of the wall is near Mission, Texas, in the lower Rio Grande Valley.
I noted a brief reference to this in the article and asked ProPublica author Jeremy Schwartz about it; he responded as follows:
Thanks for reaching out. This is from the government's 2nd Amended complaint against Fisher et al. Hope this helps:
The bollard fence structure and related road system has caused erosion of the riverbank where the Fisher Defendants modified the USIBWC-owned bank from a vertical compacted earth shelf with thick native vegetation to a sloped “beach” like shore/bank with looser sand and no vegetation to stabilize the exposed soil. As a result of the modification to the bank, erosion of the bank from the Rio Grande River toward the bollard fence structure has thus far resulted in a loss of land from the United States and a shift in the U.S. bank and potentially, the international boundary.
Fisher is the construction company that built the wall. USIBWC stands for the U.S. segment of a bi-national agency, the U.S. International Boundary & Water Commission, which owns bits and pieces of real estate along the border. The main thrust of the ProPublica article was that Brian Kolfage has pleaded guilty to defrauding donors and faces up to five years in prison as a result.