Wall Watch: Mapping Trump’s $46 Billion Border Mega-Project

What’s bigger than the Hoover Dam or the Panama Canal? The Trump Administration’sspending of more than $46 billion in taxpayer money on border walls, and buoy barriers acrossthe 1,954-mile border. The government mega-project is being carried out with little governmentoversight, input from communities, and zero studies on environmental or wildlife impacts.There’s also been no reliable government data, or a way to publicly track the border wallconstruction, as it unfolds. This is why The Border Chronicle created a new community-poweredmapping project, Wall Watch, to track current awarded border wall contracts, surveillancetechnology and other border infrastructure.Border Chronicle cofounder Melissa del Bosque and Geographer Dugan Meyer, who built thedatabase for the interactive map, describe what you can find on Wall Watch from existing borderwall to community reports on wall construction, surveying, environmental impacts and buoybarrier installation. It’s easy for border residents to submit a community report, and it helps buildan accurate picture of construction as it is happening across the U.S.-Mexico border region.Del Bosque and Meyer also discuss the challenges of building Wall Watch, and finding reliablegovernment data for the map, how Wall Watch will help border residents understand the massivemega construction project as it impacts their communities, and how residents can help build amore accurate map by submitting reports on what they’re seeing on the ground. They also talkabout the kind of data you can find on Wall Watch, and how it’s available to anyone to download.And they discuss the administration’s plan to build a “wall system” that includes two walls withenforcement zones, patrol roads, surveillance towers and stadium lights along the entire southernborder. “When this administration is done, the southern border will look more like a federalprison with double walls draped in concertina wire,” said del Bosque. “You only have to look atSan Diego where the wall system is already in place, and where they used the enforcement zonebetween the two walls as an open-air detention site in 2023, to see what the plan is for the rest ofthe border.”