On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would expedite the construction of roughly 15 miles of barriers to be built from the Pacific Ocean to one mile east of Border Monument 251 near san Diego.
The Department said it would “waive certain laws, regulations and other legal requirements to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international border near San Diego.”
The waiver deals with border infrastructure projects in the United States Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector, where in fiscal year 2016, the United States Border Patrol apprehended more than 31,000 illegal aliens and seized 9,167 pounds of marijuana and 1,317 pounds of cocaine.
The Department called the area “an area of high illegal entry for which there is an immediate need to improve current infrastructure and construct additional border barriers and roads.”
The Department noted that it was “implementing President Trump’s Executive Order 13767, Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements, and continues to take steps to immediately plan, design and construct a physical wall along the southern border, using appropriate materials and technology to most effectively achieve complete operational control of the southern border.”
The Department pointed out that it would still be “committed to environmental stewardship with respect to these projects. DHS has been coordinating and consulting — and intends to continue doing so — with other federal and state resource agencies to ensure impacts to the environment, wildlife, and cultural and historic artifacts are analyzed and minimized, to the extent possible.”
As U.S. Customs and Border Protection notes:
The San Diego Sector encompasses 56,831 square miles including 931 miles of coastal border from the California border with Mexico north to Oregon. San Diego Sector’s primary operational area of responsibility consists of 7,000 square miles including 60 linear miles of international boundary with Mexico and 114 coastal border miles along the Pacific Ocean. … With the increase in smuggling activity in recent years along Southern California’s coastal borders, additional Border Patrol agents have been assigned to combat the maritime smuggling of humans and drugs. As a result, San Diego Sector’s Primary Operational Domain has increased from 91 coastal border miles to 114.