Border Patrol Celebrates Completion of Smuggler's Gulch Border Fence!

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Above: The project involved moving 1.3 million cubic yards of dirt to form a berm across a scrub-covered canyon just inland from the Pacific Ocean.

Above: Former Congressman and 2008 Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the border fence project he authored and pushed for nearly two decades.

Border Patrol officials are celebrating the completion of a controversial border fencing project in a canyon called Smuggler's Gulch. As KPBS Reporter Amy Isackson tells us, (audio link above) Border Patrol agents say the new infrastructure makes their jobs easier.

Smuggler's Gulch sits at the westernmost edge of the San Diego Tijuana border.

It was a main thoroughfare for illegal crossings. But traffic has dwindled during the last decade. The majority of migrants try their luck further east.

Nevertheless, in 2005, Congress allowed the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive any laws that stood in the way of filling in Smuggler's Gulch to build a taller, stronger border fence, and to pave over parts of the canyon for roads.

Josh Gough, who's a Border Patrol supervisor, says it used to take five agents to patrol Smuggler's Gulch. He says now, "If you could cut an agent in half, you can patrol this area with one-point-five."