PHOTOS: Border walls in El Paso fortified in recent years

By Tom Hellauer 02/05/2024 | updated 2 years ago

Juarez, Mexico sits across a section of border wall near the Texas and New Mexico border on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

Border Patrol agent, Erik Hernandez, waits for his partner to open a gate into a section of border wall near the Rio Grande River in El Paso, Texas on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

A section of border wall near the Texas and New Mexico borders has seen increased technological capabilities in recent years in the form of automated surveillance towers as seen on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

Immigrants look for ways to cross a series of recently-erected barbed wire groupings to enter a processing and staging area on the northern bank of the Rio Grande River between Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (Tom Hellauer, Denver Gazette) (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

Border Patrol agent, Erik Hernandez surveils the landscape near the Texas, New Mexico and Mexican borders on the morning of Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (Tom Hellauer, The Gazette) (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

The sun rises over El Paso, Texas on the morning of Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

A section of border wall sits near the New Mexico and Texas borders on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

Texas allowed a private group to fundraise and build a section of border wall near the state’s shared border with New Mexico several years ago as seen on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

Barbed wire sits atop a section of border wall built by a private group near the Texas, New Mexico border on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (Tom Hellauer, The Gazette) (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

Border Patrol agents, Erik Hernandez, left, and Orlando Marrero-Rubio examine a high traffic area with an automated surveillance tower (AST) that has remote sensing cameras that feed to a control center monitored by Border Patrol agents on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (Tom Hellauer, The Gazette) (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

In recent years Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has implemented the use of automated surveillance towers or AST’s to help monitor areas of immigration traffic to compliment officers on the ground and other methods of tracking border crossings as seen on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott erected multiple strands of barbed wire near Texas’ border with New Mexico after immigrants began crossing through the area to reach El Paso, Texas. The Texas Tribune estimated the new wire runs about two miles before easing. (TomHellauertom.hellauer@denvergazette.comhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a3dc80c0a9d47d671f1f3da872cc0a06?s=100&d=mm&r=g)

Tom Hellauer

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