Trump administration officials tell Fox 85 miles of new border wall is expected to go up this year with plans for hundreds of miles more in 2026 and beyond.
“Our absolute intent is to build as much wall as we need to get the border under control,” says Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks. He recently boasted on X “back in business” with photos of one project along the Rio Grande in Texas.
Over the past week, Fox has spotted work crews plugging gaps in the existing wall line east of Yuma, Ariz., and in a rugged area of San Diego known locally as “Smuggler’s Gulch.”
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“Operational control is what we are trying to achieve,” Jeffrey Stalnaker, San Diego Border Patrol Sector Chief, said Tuesday. “We’re trying to detect anyone and everything coming across the border illegally. And to have 100 percent situational awareness of what’s going on in our area of responsibility.”
Other planned projects for this year include Jacumba, Calif., where, during the Biden administration, thousands of migrants – many from China – were seen crossing over the rugged landscape to then claim asylum. Most of whom were then released into the country to await further proceedings. That location and many others along the border are now much quieter than in recent years.
In October, the San Diego sector averaged 451 illegal crossings every day. In March, under President Trump, that average daily number fell to 39.
“If you’ve got laws that aren’t being enforced, or if you have an administration like the Biden administration that refuses to allow the border patrol to actually enforce the law and provide a consequence, then walls by themselves don’t work,” Banks told Fox. “We’ve gotten the border under more control than it’s ever been, but the goal is operational control, and we’re not going to quit until we get there.”
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On that front, Banks wants to expand the use of large blocking buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande and backstop them with walls on the shoreline. It’s a multi-layered security zone that exists in other areas of the border. “What you’ll have is a two-tiered system,” Banks says.
“So, you’ll have the buoy systems in the river in Texas. If you were to make it past those buoys and made it to the shore, then you still would have the actual border wall system.”
All told, Border Patrol officials would like to add up to nearly 1,000 miles of additional barriers in the years to come – if Congress provides the funding. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) introduced a bill in January that would allocate $25 billion for that purpose.
In the meantime, crews continue to plug gaps like the one in Smuggler’s Gulch.
“We’re going to catch everyone that’s crossing and be aware of what’s going on in our area of responsibility,” Stalnaker said as a bulldozer behind him cleared the way for the next wall panel to go into the ground.
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