This is an excerpt of “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History,” by Todd Bensman, out last month from Bombardier Books.
Biden set his work-freeze day for Jan. 27, 2021, a Wednesday. But after the November election, contractors ramped up work 24/7 to put up as much wall as possible before the inauguration, a literal race against time.
Curious to bear witness to the end of construction on that fateful morning, I set out in a rental truck west from El Paso on State Highway 9, which almost hugs the Mexican border only a half mile or a mile inside New Mexico. This was beautiful, if forbidding, high desert scrub brush country. Enormous brown vistas contrasted hard against blue sky.
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