Trump's former campaign executive and chief strategist Steve Bannon was recently indicted alongside several others for using funds from We Build the Wall to fund their own personal lifestyles.
But they didn't steal all of the money. Some of it was actually used to build a private border wall on privately-owned land and their wall is apparently a crumbling piece of crap.
Engineers who reviewed the wall's construction on behalf of Pro Publica and the Texas Tribune say the wall is going to collapse or fall over without expensive maintenance.
The report is one of two new studies set to be filed in federal court this week that found numerous deficiencies in the 3-mile border fence, built this year by North Dakota-based Fisher Sand and Gravel. The reports confirm earlier reporting from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, which found that segments of the structure were in danger of overturning due to extensive erosion if not fixed and properly maintained. Fisher dismissed the concerns as normal post-construction issues. [...]
“It seems like they are cutting corners everywhere,” said Alex Mayer, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso. “It’s not a Lamborghini, it’s a $500 used car.”
A second report, based on a geotechnical and structural inspection by the Millennium Engineers Group of Pharr, Texas, also hired by the National Butterfly Center, found that the fence was stable for now, but that it faces a host of issues. They include soil erosion on the river side — in some areas gaps up to three feet wide and waist deep, concrete cracking, construction flaws and what the firm concluded was likely substandard construction material below the fence’s foundation.
It's no surprise that this turned out to be colossal waste of money that's going to become an environmental and safety hazard when it starts falling apart, but the same is also true for sections of Trump's glorified border fence paid for with taxpayer dollars stolen from the Department of Defense.
A significant amount of the cost of building a wall or fence comes from the cost of maintaining it after it's built. The Biden administration may find itself paying to maintain sections of Trump's fence just to prevent it from becoming an even bigger hazard like the private border wall.
With We Build The Wall's leaders all being indicted, and with funding for the project most likely evaporating along with Trump's regime, there may not be anyone around to pay for the maintenance of a private border wall.
Ideally, it would be ripped out of the ground. A section of Trump's "wall" is pictured above, but that's what's going to happen to the private wall.