Bart Stinson
Congress is slow-rolling the construction of a wall along our southern border, allocating only $1.6 billion this year. That will permit some renovations of inadequate fencing, but no new construction in unprotected stretches of the boundary with Mexico. The 1,954-mile border is physically protected by only 654 miles of structures. Customs & Border Protection spokesman Ronald Vitello admitted that the Congressional appropriation this year “does not fully fund our needs in the most critical locations.”
Securing the boundaries of the United States is a straightforward mission, but execution of that mission is a huge 24/7/365 project that currently requires 21,000 Border Patrol agents.
Border protection isn’t cheap. The fiscal 2016 Customs & Border Protection budget was $13.56 billion. Anti-enforcement politicians, who are otherwise big spenders, gasped at the Department of Homeland Security’s $21.6 billion cost estimate for a border wall, and have issued their own estimate that more than triples that amount. Clearly, any solution to the border security crisis will have to be economically sustainable.
America First co-founder Steve Vulich said “they’re going to have to make [the border wall] welcoming and environmentally friendly.”
The president has said that with solar panels, the wall could pay for itself. None of the initial eight prototypes included solar energy capability, but as Vulich told the Washington Post last year, “they darn sure should be looking at the ability to be able to add that on, once this wall is up.” He said email to his organization ran 70 percent in favor of a solar component.
Some manufacturers are betting that solar power in the remote regions will be a game-changer for Border Patrol mobility. They’re developing battery-powered vehicles tailored to the border enforcement mission, with a range of 250-300 miles between recharging. One developed a secure battery locker to be embedded in a solar border wall, which Border Patrol agents can access to quickly swap out a depleted battery for a fresh one, good for another 250-300 miles.
These vehicles are powerful enough to carry agents with all their tactical gear at pursuit speeds, up steep grades. If the Border Patrol were to shift to silent electric bikes, illegal intruders wouldn’t hear agents approaching until within voice range. The quiet bikes would not only mitigate the threat of hearing damage, but enable agents to use enhanced hearing technology for detecting footfalls in the dark. If the Border Patrol moves to smaller helmets for agents on those electric bikes, they can mount night-vision goggles that will multiply the effectiveness of each agent in the field. Combined, it’s no exaggeration to call these innovations the re-invention of border protection.
The most rapid future improvement is expected in batteries.
Accordingly, manufacturers are designing their vehicles as modular technology platforms. They fully expect their batteries to be obsolete in a few years, but robust field patrol vehicles will outlive several generations of new-and-improved batteries. Customs & Border Protection budgets will be spared the burden of replacing fleets every few years because, in most cases, they’ll only need to replace the battery.
The electric vehicles are simpler to maintain than internal-combustion vehicles. Maintenance costs will drop dramatically. That, along with the decreased fuel expenditures, will help make border protection economically sustainable. But it will also improve mission accomplishment. Perhaps it will leave room in the budget for night-vision goggles, enhanced hearing technology, and improved surveillance and communications technology to properly deploy the agents.
The wall doesn’t have to be a blight on the Southwest U.S. communities. Vulich spoke of his computer model of “a wall with solar panels, with murals painted on it, [that] would just blow their minds.” This sounds like President Trump’s vision of a “big, beautiful wall.”
In some areas, the wall might be so far from U.S. transmission lines that it’s sensible to sell the solar-generated electricity to Mexico. I have written that I think the wall should be financed by a tax on foreign remittances (via Western Union, Moneygram or bank transfers) to Mexico and Central American sources of illegal immigration. But the sale of surplus electricity generated by solar capacity in the border wall could be an additional way for the president to keep his campaign promise that Mexico will pay for the wall.
This arrangement would give the Mexican government an economic incentive to protect the wall, and border-area Mexico residents might eventually come to see the wall as an asset rather than an affront.
