The majority of hard drug seizures occur at legal ports of entry because we patrol them the closest. We really have no idea how many drugs flow across the border at easier crossing points. Some places have nothing more than vehicle barriers in place, and it's incredibly easy to cross the border undetected.
Now that we have hard evidence that they're using areas other than legal ports of entry to get their drugs across, it gives more credence to the theory that we need a more secure barrier in place to slow them down. Obviously we need something better than what's being installed. It's embarrassing to think they're spending billions on a wall that can easily be cut down with a power saw.
I get your point, but the "evidence" BP had based on numbers points to legal points of entry, so it makes sense to direct the budget where the numbers show the contraband is crossing. We've always had holes in the fence where drugs go, but that is not "hard evidence" that serious volume is crossing this way.
With the budget going to the wall, we could've ordered a study into how porous to drugs our border really is for instance, then based on actual hard evidence, act accordingly.
The bollard fence is anything but embarrassing (from a structural standpoint, never mind the optics). What's embarrassing is to think someone couldn't cut through it. If someone's building the damn thing, than obviously someone is going to know how to cut through it.
Now they're throwing vibration sensors. Guess what? If I'm a trafficker, I'm just gonna strap a reciprocating saw to the wall and use it as a decoy to focus BP on a spot while I cross elsewhere.
