Drug smugglers and human traffickers are easily sawing through President Donald Trump’s “impenetrable” southern border wall, officials have told The Washington Post.
They’re using a cordless power tool easily purchased at hardware stores to open up sections of the multi-billion-dollar barrier to pass people and drugs through, sources told the newspaper.
The tool, a reciprocating saw fitted with a special blade, can cut through the steel and concrete bollards of the barrier in minutes, the Post reported. It sells for about $100.
The bollards — steel rods filled with concrete — are only attached at the top and bottom of the border barrier, and can be pushed aside once cut at the base, engineers explained to the Post.
Ronald Vitiello, who was the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement until April, characterized the breaches as “poking and prodding” by cartels.
“The cartels will continue to innovate, and they’re not just going to leave San Diego because the wall gets better,” Vitiello told the Post.
In a demonstration last month, rock climbers clambered to the top of a replicated section of the barrier in as little as 13 seconds.
“We have a wall the likes of which very few places have ever seen,” Trump boasted in September at a section of new barrier in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego.
It “really is virtually impenetrable,” Trump insisted.
He declared then that “this wall can’t be climbed.” The president added: “If you think you’re going to cut it with a blow torch, that doesn’t work because you hit concrete, and then if you think you’re gonna go through the concrete, that doesn’t work because we have very powerful rebar inside.” He didn’t mention reciprocating saws.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection refused to provide information about the number of breaches of the border wall or where they happened.
Read the Post’s entire report here.