Unused '$10 million' highway to southern border crossing is DEMOLISHED amid Trump migrant crackdown
A highway connecting a planned port of entry in Mexico and southern California is being demolished as President Donald Trump ramps up his mass deportation goals.
Bulldozers have been seen tearing up a quarter mile of roadway that would have linked Tijuana and Otay Mesa, a neighborhood southeast of San Diego.
The road, an extension of state route 11, was built two years ago and was set to lead right to the new Otay Mesa Port of Entry East, a facility that has been fully built on the Mexican side.
This port of entry, which will have 'state-of-the-art inspection facilities', is being created to relieve traffic at the existing border facility in Otay Mesa.
However, the American side of the port has yet to be built at all. It is two years behind schedule and is now being redesigned by the San Diego Association of Governments, according to Border Report.
It comes weeks after the Department of Transportation said it would be officially disbursing the $150 million grant, first approved under the Biden administration, to build the border crossing facility on the American side.
The April 15 announcement confirmed that the Trump administration came to a altered agreement with state authorities that got rid of a 'zero-emission vehicle charging provision.'
It is unclear whether new demands from Trump officials are the reason the road is being torn up. The cost of the demolition is approximately $4 million on top of the $10 million that went into building it in the first place, a contractor told Border Report.
The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) have said they are 'currently collaborating with federal partners on the project's final design.'
'Thanks to the prior administration's lack of focus, this critical project sat in limbo for two years. No more,' Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement.
'We moved to finalize this deal so we can help protect our Southern border and crack down on drug trafficking while preventing tax dollars subsidizing pointless Green New Deal priorities.'
DailyMail.com approached the White House and the Department of Transportation for comment.
SANDAG said they plan to break ground on the port of entry by this fall. They anticipate it to be fully operational by late 2027.
Federal and state officials say the port will strengthen border security while also providing another option for commercial and passenger vehicles to move between California and Baja California.
The San Ysidro border crossing, approximately five miles away from the one in Otay Mesa, is already the busiest thoroughfare into the United States, welcoming an average of 40,000 personal vehicles per day from Mexico last year.
As of 6am PDT on Tuesday the average wait time to cross at San Ysidro was 95 minutes, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The new port of entry in Otay Mesa will 'provide an alternative for nearly 3,600 trucks that cross the existing Otay Mesa and Tecate Ports of Entry daily, which are operating at capacity,' according to the Department of Transportation.
Recreational vehicles travelling through the port will be subject to dynamic tolling, a system where tolls are priced based on the level of congestion on the road.
The port will also be equipped with state-of-the-art inspection equipment for Border Patrol officers and a Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Facility, where federal agents will be able to inspect the cargo of trucks to make sure they do not have illegal contraband or exceed the weight limits of state highways.
Efforts to make crossings between Mexico and Southern California more efficient come as Trump is looking to make good on his campaign promises of securing the border and deporting a record number of illegal migrants.
US Border Patrol continues to stem the immigration flow into the US, announcing in April that it had apprehended a record low average of 264 migrants per day in March.
This is a 95 percent decrease from March 2024, when border patrol agents arrested an average of 4,488 migrants per day.
The Trump administration has run into resistance from civil liberties advocates who are suing over the government's attempts to rapidly deport illegal migrants.
One of the most notable cases is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was living in Maryland and was mistakenly deported to a notoriously hellish prison in El Salvador.
The government insists that the El Salvador native is a member of MS-13, but multiple courts have expressed skepticism, with the Supreme Court ordering Trump to 'facilitate' the return of Garcia to the US so he can be given due process.
In the meantime, the Trump administration unveiled a new plan offering migrants up to $1,000 if they choose to voluntarily leave the country.
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