Border Wall Plans Run Into A Cliff In South Texas

Patrick Zuberbueler’s ranch has been in his family for generations.

The land, which sits along the Rio Grande in Val Verde County, is hunting ground and home to their Rambouillet sheep, Angora goats, and cattle. It could also soon become home for new vehicle barriers the Trump administration is hoping to install to prevent border crossings.

There’s just one major problem: the vehicle barriers would be located along cliffs that drop 275 feet to the river, where it would be near-impossible for anyone to drive across. And the vehicle barriers, which consist of four-foot tall metal posts with a cross beam, don’t prevent crossings on foot.

“They keep talking about a vehicle barrier. It’s impossible for a vehicle to drive across, come into the United States, especially in the western part of the ranch. It’s deep bluffs. You would have to drive off the bluff and then it would be catastrophic,” Zuberbueler told The Daily Wire.

“The plan they have in place makes absolutely no sense,” Zuberbueler said.

Zuberbueler, citing President Donald Trump’s success in shutting down the border, says he doesn’t believe border barriers are necessary. His family has also suffered enough at the hands of overreaching government, he said.

Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez said the planned vehicle barrier would be a waste of taxpayer dollars.

“There’s no vehicles coming across that country because they can’t. There’s no roads on the Mexican side that’s going to allow them to put their vehicle across the border through the river because 98% of those, they’re canyons. It’s a taxpayer’s expense that taxpayers don’t need to burden.”

Zuberbueler said he’s become so desperate he emailed the White House, inviting the president to visit his property.

“I’ve got to try,” he said, adding, “We don’t have a choice.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced in June its plans to construct a four- to six-foot-tall steel “vehicle barrier” through a $2.6 billion contract, which also included the paving of new patrol roads between Sanderson and Lake Amistad.

A CBP spokesperson told The Daily Wire that it’s all part of “a border security strategy that leverages advanced technology and the natural terrain barriers.”

“Cameras, sensors, roads, and limited low-profile post-on-rail barriers will be deployed in strategic locations to restrict unlawful vehicle access while utilizing existing natural barriers. Additionally, CBP will use and improve existing public and park roads where it is possible to provide agents with continued access along the border,” the spokesperson said.

Nearly 100 miles west of Val Verde County in the Big Bend region of West Texas, Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland is preparing for the federal government’s construction of similar vehicle border barriers where the cliffs drop “anywhere from 500 feet to a 1,000 feet.”

“I can tell you, all of Terrell County, you cannot drive a vehicle across the border there. Significant cliffs, same thing with that 37 miles of Brewster County and a lot of that country, really all of that country going into Val Verde, it’s just impossible because of the cliffs that are on either side of the river,” Cleveland said.

The agency earlier walked back plans to build a 30-foot-tall border wall in the Big Bend region after landowners and sheriffs, including Cleveland, expressed disapproval of the project. Cleveland says the rugged mountains serve as “big natural barriers” that keep crossings low and that more cameras and drones in the sky would serve them better.

Cleveland, who served over two decades as a Border Patrol agent, similarly has taken issue with the plan, saying vehicle barriers wouldn’t make a difference. He said they instead need what has been tagged as the “virtual wall” by putting drones in the skies.

The sheriff also emphasized the need for new roads along the border, which is part of the Trump administration’s construction plans, so authorities can have better access to the frontlines.

“I believe in barriers where barriers are necessary, and this isn’t an area where barriers are necessary because we have that time and distance and technology to fill those gaps,” he said.