El Paso Firm Interested in Bidding for the Border Wall Insists It’s Not a Political Choice

*Why you should read this: Because the seeming contradiction of U.S. Latino businesses being open to participating in the construction of the border wall is an illustration of the layered and complex relationships along the southern border. Because some businessmen feel that if the wall is going to be built they might as well make money from it. VL

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By Adriana Cataño, Remezcla  (3.5 minute read)  

For nearly two years, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump vowed to build a wall between Mexico and the United States in a misguided effort to curb migration from Latin America to the United States. One of his first moves as president was to call for the construction of the border wall with the signing of two executive orders on January 25. Though he and his administration have yet to provide details on how the building of a 2,000-mile wall could logistically move forward – from how to pay for it to whether it’d bypass the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act – firms are vying to take on the project.

Read more stories about trump’s border wall in NewsTaco. >> 

According to ABC-7, seven El Paso companies – Burman Construction, Tigua Enterprises Incorporated, Jobe Materials, ECM International, Vertex Contractors, Arbaj Building Contracting, and Henry Trujillo Trucking – have reportedly shown interest in the project. As a city on the border, El Paso’s future is inextricably linked with Juarez’s. In 2008, an 18-foot-high metal fence was built to separate the two countries. The result was that El Paso thrived and Juarez didn’t, according to the Los Angeles Times. Even still, it was impossible to drive a wedge between the two cities, who depend on each other for labor and commerce. “The fence is a symbol for people who care about national security, not something that actually stops people from crossing,” Carlos Marentes, who protested the wall, said. “[Bureaucrats in Washington] don’t know the border. It’s a community you can’t separate.”

The fence also pushed undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and other Latin American countries to take more drastic measures when trying to cross the border. They had no choice but to go through remote desert areas, which are unforgiving terrains. Between 2010 and 2014, a record number of immigrants attempted the treacherous journey through the Sonoran Desert into Arizona, and many died along the way, the LA Times reports.

“People are going to find a way to cross; you cannot stop that,” said Carlos Valdiviezo. “But the wall will change much about life on the border. People will find a way to cross, but it will be more dangerous now.”

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[Photo by J. N. Stuart/Flickr]