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“Ladders and walls go together like peas and carrots,” explained one McAllen Border Patrol agent. The typical wall-thwarting strategy along a stretch of the border in the Rio Grand Valley between Granjeno and Hidalgo, Texas, is wooden, about a dozen feet high with only six or so rungs. “It’s made of cheap, rough wood, quickly nailed together because it is only going to be used once,” local artist and activist Scott Nicol told Texas Monthly. “Unlike the wall, these ladders are functional.” He estimates the materials for the most primitive wooden ladders cost about $5. Some are higher and have more rungs, while ladders up river may be rope-and-PVC or rusted rebar ladders that hook to the top of the barrier. “Camouflage” rebar ladders blend in with the bollards of the barriers and are often left in place for repeated use, The El Paso Times reported last year. The materials for those ladders also cost about $5. ....
A new report from Texas Monthly claims that the United States Border Patrol finds itself constantly having to destroy cheap $5 ladders that it finds left on the side of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, the Border Patrol destroys so many ladders that it regularly has to call the city of Hidalgo, Texas to haul away the piles of lumber that are produced by the destroyed ladders. Scott Nicol, a local artist and activist, tells Texas Monthly that the ladders used by undocumented immigrants to enter the United States show just how useless Trump s most beloved infrastructure project really is. ....
A ladder in front of newly built border wall at Granjeno, on January 2, 2021. Scott Nicol Every month for the past decade, Scott Nicol, a 51-year-old artist and activist, has set out from his home in McAllen to roam the Rio Grande Valley in search of ladders used to scale the border wall in South Texas. On a cool and overcast day in early April, Nicol has centered his hunt on an eight-mile stretch of border between the towns of Hidalgo and Granjeno, where an Obama-era wall meets up with a newly constructed piece of Trump’s wall. The first stop of the day brings him to a dirt field behind a flea market in Hidalgo. A pair of green and white Border Patrol SUVs are parked atop the eighteen-foot-high concrete levee wall, next to a section of bollard-style fence with a closed gate, their noses pointed toward the Rio Grande. Within minutes, Nicol has spotted a ladder roughly halfway up the levee; it’s about a dozen feet long and has only six rungs. “It’s made of cheap ....