Despite stiff opposition from landowners and community groups, and a U.S. Dept of Homeland Security Inspector General report that questions building a U.S.-Mexico barrier through the close border city of Laredo, Texas, the Customs and Border Protection agency has awarded a second wall construction contract there.
The city of nearly 265,000, the tenth largest in Texas, is built on the banks of the Rio Grande directly across from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Agency officials claimed in a recent statement it is a hot spot of illegal border crossing for drugs and undocumented persons, with most of that in areas that "lack infrastructure, access, mobility and technology."