NATION

$100 saws make quick work of Trump’s 'virtually impenetrable’ border wall

Dave Goldiner
New York Daily News

He’s building a wall — and they’re cutting holes right through it.

Migrants and smugglers have succeeded in cutting through President Donald Trump’s “virtually impenetrable” border wall using cordless saws that cost as little as $100 apiece at hardware stores, border agents and officials told The Washington Post.

Trump administration officials admitted being aware of “a few instances” in which human smugglers managed to breach rebuilt sections of the $10 billion wall that Trump once promised Mexico would pay for, the paper reported.

The widely available saws can cut through the wall’s steel bollards within a matter of minutes. The 30-foot-tall panels can then be easily pushed forward, allowing people to pass through.

President Donald Trump visits the U.S.-Mexico border, east of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego on September 18, 2019.

Most of the reported border crossings involving cuts through the wall have occurred in the busy area near San Diego, the paper said.

Past and present border officials insisted the newly reinforced sections of wall are still harder to cut through than they were before. They attributed the new breaches to the constant innovation of smuggling gangs, which amount to a multibillion-dollar industry of sneaking undocumented immigrants into the U.S.

“They’re not just going to leave San Diego because the wall gets better,” Ronald Vitiello, a former U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief, told the Post. “That’s life on the border.”

Trump touts the wall as almost impossible to get through and has brought reporters along to show off what he calls the “Rolls Royce” of walls.

He has diverted billions in taxpayer funds that Congress approved for other uses to rebuild sections of the wall after famously vowing that Mexico would pay for it.