… A piece of border wall President Donald Trump started in his first term is almost finished. Built as a bridge over the river for patrolling border agents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, designed this particular piece of wall like the entrance to a castle. One thousand feet of 30-foot-high steel gates cut across the notoriously polluted river’s concrete channel. Border agents are supposed to raise the gates before it rains. If they fail – say the power goes out, the gates won’t open and border agents can’t lift them manually – the force of billions of gallons of rainwater mixed with Tijuana sludge would smash against the wall-turned-dam, causing the raging river to back up over its levees and consume downtown Tijuana.  

Other U.S./Mexico news: 

• Committee on Appropriations: News release: Appropriators talk oversight, Mexico water treaty violations