-Laredo, United States, 19 Nov (AFP) 2018 – began working in the cold of the morning and moved quickly, unwinding reel after reel of barbed wire, binding it to p ostes nailed to the floor. In three days, the gleaming fence of concertina that reaches to the shoulders emerged as a snake silver along the Bank of a river where the eye. This was the work of approximately 100 soldiers of the 19th engineers battalion of the U.S. Army, based at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The troops are not in a far distant war zone, but in Laredo, a crowded city on the border with Mexico, dominated by a stretch of the Rio Grande.
Photo: AFP the President Donald Trump sent 5,800 soldiers to the border to prevent the arrival of large groups of Central American migrants traveling through Mexico, a measure that critics denounced as an attempt to remove political revenue before the midterm elections earlier this month.
Trump said that the progress of the caravan of migrants involved a “national emergency” to what he called “invasion” with “gangsters and some very bad thugs”. So far, the most visible deployment of Trump is the fence, a physical barrier designed to lead petitioners migrants from asylum to organized at U.S. entry points.
over the weekend, could see the platoon Lieutenant Alan Koepnick extendender the fence along the banks of a quiet park along the River, near the center of Laredo. While families walked dogs, cooked sausages grilled and relaxed it, soldiers mounted wire no tear on occasion with metal tines-camouflage uniforms.
Koepnick acknowledged that some Laredo residents showed their concern by the fences and the presence of the troops. “But there are also lots of support, people coming, veterans who give us the hand, bring us cakes, water… things as well,” explained to the AFP Koepnick.
about 100 meters back from it, you can see a group of people on the Mexican side of the river. “You see people on the other side of the River, cursing us in Spanish and throwing us bottles. But on this side is more positive,”said Koepnick the Lieutenant and his men van unarmed, although a group of armed military policemen remain by his side as a”protection force”. United States laws do not allow the military to exercise police duties, so soldiers will not have any direct interaction with the immigrants.
Trump, who want to build a wall along the 3,200-km border with Mexico, last week praised the military work: “They constructed large fences, built a very powerful fence”. Laura Pole, a British tourist visiting Laredo for the third time, was less enthusiastic. “Reminds me of Hitler and the concentration camps”, he said, although he acknowledged that “I don’t really know what is the best thing that can be done”. The border mission placed the military under the light of an uncomfortable focus and the Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, visited last week the troops deployed at the border.
Mattis said that “we don’t do (there) maneuvers” military and short-term work was helping the customs agents and protective border (CBP), which have few resources, and put physical barriers on the border. After some soldiers complained to the media about the purpose of the mission, they now have strict orders not to give their personal opinions to the press.
large numbers of caravans are not directed to Laredo, but Tijuana, more than 2,000 km to the West, where the authorities say that they have already reached more than 3,000 migrants. However, a U.S. customs agent, who said he not authorized to give his name, showed his satisfaction with military assistance, since every day “hundreds” of migrants trying to cross the stretch of approximately 50 km from the border that patrols. It is expected that the military deployment ends on 15 December and it is not clear what will happen to the fence. The winds blowing in the Rio Grande Valley are accumulating garbage, clothes and bags of plastic along the concertina.
“no one seems to know when to be disassembled. Really is not our decision,”said Koepnick.
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