SALT LAKE CITY — Brian Kolfage wants a wall along the Mexican border.
And he’s not going to wait for the government to get the job done.
Even though the Trump administration has planned to construct approximately 450 miles of wall along the southern border by the end of 2020, Kolfage’s We Build the Wall, Inc., a Florida-based nonprofit, has already started clearing land for its own privately funded wall.
Kolfage, an Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient, is known for raising more than $20 million earlier this year on GoFundMe, which he planned to donate to the federal government for a wall. When it turned out that wasn’t allowed, he founded We Build the Wall, Inc. to independently construct sections of wall on private property donated to the group. The organization has already completed a half-mile segment of fencing equipped with security technology at the border in Sunland Park, New Mexico, just outside of El Paso. Now they are clearing land for their second construction project, a 3.5-mile barrier on the banks of the Rio Grande in Mission, Texas.
We Build the Wall has gotten a thumbs-up from President Donald Trump and some Department of Homeland Security officials, like acting secretary Chad F. Wolf who visited the project site in New Mexico on Wednesday and said, “I welcome all that want to be part of the solution.” Environmental advocates and those who think a wall is an expensive and ineffective response to the country’s immigration problems aren’t as enthused.
They include people like Laiken Jordahl, borderlands campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based nonprofit that advocates for the protection of endangered species, some of which could be threatened by a border wall. Jordahl questioned why We Build the Wall is spending millions of dollars on their own project when the Trump administration already has plans to wall-off the Rio Grande Valley, which stretches about 150 miles and includes Mission, Texas.
Kolfage said it’s because construction isn’t happening fast enough. Facing opposition from Congress over funding for a wall, Trump signed a declaration of National Emergency in 2018 that allowed him to divert money allocated for other purposes, like anti-drug programs and military construction. In total, Trump has secured more than $6 billion that will fund about 450 miles of wall. Seventy-eight miles of wall have already been built and construction is continuing, according to acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner Mark Morgan.
But the president is still seeking $5 billion in additional border wall funding from Congress, and Democrats are refusing to cede the money. To avoid another government shutdown, lawmakers passed a short-term bill on Tuesday to fund the government through late December.
“The government is not getting the job done, which is why we have stepped up,” Kolfage said. “President Trump wants to get it done, but every time he tries ... there’s someone always stopping him with every move. He can’t be the president we elected him to be.”
In contrast, “there is no gridlock in the private sector,” Kolfage said.
Kolfage said he is confident that the newest wall segment his group is building will have a chilling effect on illegal immigration and crime. He compares the effort to fixing holes in a leaky hose. But Jordahl said the wall segment, which covers a tiny part of the nearly 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border, is just for show.
“I think all it really is is a symbol. Unfortunately, it is a symbol that causes real and serious harm to communities and to wildlife,” he said.
While construction of Trump’s wall is underway, Kolfage has been frustrated by legal and political challenges that have slowed the pace. The use of emergency funds for the wall has been challenged in court and while a final ruling has not been issued, the Supreme Court has permitted construction to continue in the meantime. David Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, said there is not much that can stop the president at this point because the wall portions that are currently planned and funded will be finished prior to a final ruling.
In light of the government’s plans, Jordahl says the We Build the Wall project is an empty symbolic gesture to show support for the president. Domingo Garcia, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, says it is a symbol of something more sinister: bigotry and xenophobia.
“A sector of the American public is more concerned about building walls than supporting the Statue of Liberty. They’ve forgotten where they come from and that America is a country of immigrants,” Garcia said.
Jordahl also worries the We Build the Wall project could empower others to “take border enforcement into their own hands.” He points to “dangerous and irresponsible” vigilante movements in Arizona and New Mexico. In April, the FBI arrested the leader of a right-wing group that detained migrants at gunpoint in New Mexico. In 2009, a woman who was part of a civilian militia group in Arizona shot and killed a father and daughter that she thought were drug dealers.
We Build the Wall is not racially motivated, Kolfage said, but it is “a beacon of hope” to people who want a more secure America.
“People donating to our project are able to give their middle finger to the people not getting it done,” said Kolfage. “They are screaming by giving us money. It’s a slap in the face of the politicians saying no. Every mile we put up is a slap in their face.”
Kolfage has a history of working with right-wing media sites that have promoted conspiracy theories and racially charged content, according to NBC News. He said he worked to build the pages’ brands and sell them but was not responsible for the content.
The wall
Kolfage began raising money on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe in December 2018. Today his nonprofit, We Build the Wall, Inc., has eight staff members and its website boasts $25 million in donations from 500,000 individuals. Working with construction company Fisher Industries, the group has already completed about half a mile of wall in New Mexico.
Now, they have turned their focus to Mission, Texas, where they have broken ground and will soon begin construction on a 3.5-mile wall — as long as they are able to obtain necessary permits. Kolfage is confident the project will help stop illegal activity, like human trafficking and drug smuggling. The 18-foot wall will be equipped with technology to prevent people from digging underneath it or climbing over it.
“We are dealing with the worst of the worst people coming across in this section,” said Kolfage, who claims We Build the Wall staff members have witnessed people illegally crossing the Mission property. “It’s a major drug-smuggling route.”
While reports exist of police apprehending people carrying drugs like marijuana in the Mission area, U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics indicate that the vast majority of drugs like cocaine, heroin and fentanyl are smuggled in at ports of entry, not across private property.
Most people crossing the border are not criminals but families seeking asylum and voluntarily turning themselves in to authorities, said Theresa Brown, director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The number of migrants coming from Central America peaked earlier this year in May, with a reported 144,000 border apprehensions that month. But the influx of migrants had no impact on the amount of drugs coming into the country, according to an analysis by the Cato Institute. Since May, the White House reported the number of border apprehensions has declined by more than 60%.
According to Bier, even if there was a need for a wall in Mission, a 3.5-mile barrier wouldn’t stop anyone.
“At the end of the day, building 3.5 miles doesn’t amount to much. It might benefit whoever’s farm it’s on if the landowners don’t want people walking on their property,” said Bier. “The evidence from the last two decades shows that as long as there are gaps in the wall, there’s just going to be a redirection of the traffic coming across the border, and it won’t make a difference.”
Bier would like to see the investment going towards wall-building used to prevent serious crimes like rape and murder elsewhere instead. Garcia supports “virtual wall” measures, many of which are already in place, including boots on the ground, sensors and drones that can monitor the border and intercept illegal immigration or drug smuggling. Garcia said these methods are cheaper and more effective than an actual wall.
Garcia called the We Build the Wall project a “publicity stunt to con money from people who don’t realize that they have zero impact on immigration or illegal immigration.”
Kolfage refuted claims that he is enriching himself from donations and said he has never taken a salary for his role in the nonprofit. The state of Florida has investigated complaints over We Build the Wall’s handling of funds, but so far there have been no findings against the group.
Is it allowed?
One fear is that a wall being built along the river in Mission, Texas, could contribute to flood hazards, according to Scott Nicol, co-chair of the Sierra Club’s borderlands campaign. Even if there are spaces between the wall’s bollards, those spaces can get clogged with debris and turn the wall into a solid dam if the river floods, he said. In one instance in Arizona in 2008, a border fence caused floodwater to back up 6 feet high, damaging private property, businesses and natural resources in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
An international treaty between the U.S. and Mexico requires that people who build in the floodplain of the Rio Grande first obtain a permit from the International Boundary and Water Commission to ensure flood water will not be pushed into the other country. The commission sent a letter to We Build the Wall leaders on Nov. 15 demanding that the group submit a hydraulic report before continuing with construction.
Kolfage said the group has just been clearing land and hasn’t actually started construction, so they haven’t needed a permit yet. He plans to comply with all of the commission’s requirements and says the group has already taken flooding risks and local wildlife into account with the wall’s design.
Any landowner can build a fence on their private property, said Bier, “it’s entirely within their rights.”
But a fence could have an adverse effect on local wildlife as well, said Jordahl. Bobcats, mountain lions and the endangered ocelot and jaguarundi cats live in the area and need to access the river. Additionally, clearing vegetation can destroy the habitats for numerous birds and butterflies who stop in the Rio Grande Valley on their migratory paths.
“To people who have never been to the border, the idea of building a wall makes sense. It might help them sleep better at night thousands of miles away,” said Jordahl. “But in reality, it’s a much more complex, interconnected system of communities and ecology.”
The National Butterfly Center, a nature preserve where half of the country’s butterfly species have been documented, is located about a mile and a half from the wall construction site.
On Twitter, Kolfage claimed that people are prioritizing butterflies above people and implied that the National Butterfly Center has been complicit in illegal trafficking.
“We must chose national security over butterfly. I’m sick of seeing women & children exploited in the name of butterflies,” Kolfage wrote on Twitter.
“The National Butterfly Center is the most important location in the United States for seeing and learning about wild butterflies and is an important conservation resource,” said Bob Crane, NABA media spokesperson. “Recent statements issued by We Build the Wall about the National Butterfly Center are all a pack of lies.”
Brown questioned We Build the Wall’s plan to gift the wall to the federal government when it is finished. She said it is not permissible under current law for the government to “accept as a gift something it would have spent government funds to do.”
“I think that this group is woefully or willfully ignorant of the limitations of what they are trying to do, and it is a political stunt more than anything,” Brown said. “But I also think the likelihood that any part of what they are doing will become official government ‘wall’ is zero or very close to it.”
However, Kolfage said the transaction is already in the works and might involve selling the wall to the government for $1.
“There’s always a lot of people who say you can’t, but really who has tried?” Kolfage said. “It’s uncharted territory.”
Correction: A previous version incorrectly stated the Rio Grande Valley is 800 miles long. The Rio Grande Valley generally refers to the trans-border region at the southern tip of Texas between the Gulf of Mexico and Falcon Lake, which is about 150 miles.