According to Border Patrol agents, illegal immigrants are crossing the border using ladders made from cobbled-together materials such as PVC and plywood.
Scott Nicol, an activist and artist, has traveled along the Southern Border of the United States looking for ladders used by illegal immigrants to scale the border wall, Texas Monthly reported Wednesday.
“It’s made of cheap, rough wood, quickly nailed together because it is only going to be used once,” Nicol says. “Unlike the wall, these ladders are functional.”
Nicol said, “These ladders are probably $5 worth of hardware.”
The Texas Monthly report cited Scott Nicol, an activist and Texas resident, who said, “These ladders are probably $5 worth of hardware, and they’re defeating a wall that cost $12 million a mile in that location.” https://t.co/irLMzPlE4I
— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) April 22, 2021
On the other hand, some Border Patrol agents have asserted that Trump’s wall still serves the purpose of slowing illegal immigrants down.
“Nine times out of ten we’re going to catch them,” Chris Cabrera, a McAllen-based border agent, said of migrants who use ladders.
Border patrol agents have been inundated with an influx of illegal border crossings.
Cabrera said, “We have people turning themselves over, and at the same time, when it’s dark we have people with ladders, but we got nobody to go over because we’re tied up.” (RELATED: White House Walks Back Biden’s Comment Calling Border Situation A ‘Crisis’)
According to Texas Monthly, rope and PVC ladders with metal hooks are becoming increasingly popular on the upriver, while wooden ladders are preferred in the Granjeno to Hidalgo stretch of the border.
Border Patrol agents are destroying the ladders wherever they find them in order to try and quell the crossings, according to Texas Monthly.