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Which border sectors (e.g., Rio Grande Valley, Yuma) had the most new wall built by 2025?
Executive summary
Federal and state reporting and interactive maps show renewed construction since January 20, 2025, with CBP and DHS listing over 80 miles of new permanent barrier projects initiated across San Diego, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso and Rio Grande Valley sectors and specific contracts and waivers enabling roughly 36 miles in Arizona/New Mexico and dozens more in Texas and Arizona (CBP/DHS/PolitiFact/Wikipedia) [1] [2] [3]. Texas’s state program reports dozens of miles completed within Texas counties (54.6–66.4 miles reported at different dates in 2025), and federal contract notices and CBP’s “Smart Wall” mapping identify large project mileages in Yuma, Tucson, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley sectors [4] [5] [3].
1. New projects are concentrated but spread across several sectors
Federal summaries and reporting say CBP “initiated more than 80 miles of new permanent border barrier projects” spanning San Diego, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley sectors, indicating no single sector monopolized all early-2025 starts; instead, projects were distributed among those five sectors [1]. CBP’s Smart Wall materials treat completed and under-construction mileage since January 20, 2025 as a separate tally, reinforcing that multiple sectors were targeted concurrently [5].
2. Yuma and Tucson show large contract mileages in federal procurement notices
CBP/DHS procurement summaries and later contract announcements assign substantial mileage to Arizona projects: a Yuma 1 contract described roughly 60 miles of “system attributes” in the Yuma Sector, and a Tucson 1 contract mentioned about 23 miles of new secondary wall and 66 miles of system attributes in Tucson and Yuma sectors — indicating sizable construction commitments in those Arizona sectors [3]. News reporting also called out a March 2025 announcement of seven miles of new wall in Arizona, showing both small, discrete starts and much larger planned contracts [6].
3. El Paso and Rio Grande Valley receive notable new-mile commitments
CBP’s contract slate and public statements include El Paso sector projects (El Paso 2 and El Paso 3) totaling multiple tens of miles of new primary and secondary Smart Wall and system attributes, and a Rio Grande Valley waterborne barrier project of about 17 miles was awarded, signaling targeted investment in Texas sectors as well [3]. PolitiFact’s summary explicitly lists El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley among sectors with initiated projects since January 20, 2025 [1].
4. State-level Texas program added dozens of miles by mid-2025
Separately from federal initiatives, the Texas Facilities Commission reported program progress within Texas counties — 54.6 miles completed as of Jan. 16, 2025, rising to 61.8 miles by April 17 and 66.4 miles by June 18, 2025 — reflecting substantial state-led or state-funded wall construction concentrated in Cameron, Starr, Zapata, Webb, Maverick and Val Verde counties within the Rio Grande Valley and nearby sectors [4]. This state tally complicates attribution of “most new wall” when combining federal and state projects.
5. Official maps and messaging use different starting points and definitions
CBP’s Smart Wall Map explicitly measures “Completed” mileage since January 20, 2025 and separates “Existing Barrier (prior to 1/20/2025),” so totals depend on which start-date and whether you count primary, secondary, waterborne barriers, or “system attributes” (roads, sensors) [5]. White House and CBP communications reported 83 miles of traditional wall and 17 miles of waterborne barriers “under construction or in planning,” but that figure aggregates different project types and sources, so sector-by-sector comparisons require digging into contract-level or map-layer details [7].
6. Environmental waivers and legal disputes affect where work can proceed
DHS issued waivers that cover roughly 36 miles across Arizona and New Mexico and have been used to accelerate certain projects, and reporting notes lawsuits and conservation opposition especially in Arizona and New Mexico that could slow or alter construction [2] [3] [8]. This means announced mileages may not translate immediately into completed wall — legal challenges and environmental constraints are visible limits [8].
7. Bottom line and how to interpret “most new wall built by 2025”
Available sources do not present a single authoritative table ranking sectors by completed new miles through 2025; instead, they show: CBP-initiated projects totaling “more than 80 miles” across five sectors (San Diego, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso, Rio Grande Valley) [1]; large contract mileages assigned to Yuma, Tucson and El Paso projects [3]; and a separate Texas program reporting 54.6–66.4 completed miles in 2025 within Texas border counties [4]. To declare which sector had the absolute most new wall “built by 2025” requires reconciling CBP Smart Wall completed-mile data, contract award descriptions, and state program completions — sources above point to Yuma/Tucson/El Paso and Texas’s Rio Grande Valley as the leading candidates depending on whether you count federal contracts, physical on-the-ground completions, or state-funded work [5] [3] [4].
If you want, I can extract the CBP Smart Wall sector-by-sector “Completed” mile figures from the interactive map and align those with the Texas Facilities Commission dates to produce a more explicit ranked table based strictly on the available federal and state tallies [5] [4].