Greg Abbott’s Border Fence Is Rising in Bits and Pieces Local officials in South Texas are scrambling to figure out what the governor is building in their communities. July 27, 2021 Texas National Guardsmen add razor wire to the top of the border fence, just west of Del Rio, on July 21, 2021. Photograph by Aaron Nelsen Governor Greg Abbott’s border wall isn’t big or beautiful, like the one that President Trump promises. In fact, it isn’t even a wall. But bits of it are rising, after a fashion. In recent weeks, 1.2 miles of chain-link fence has been erected on a spit of land, choked with carrizo cane, just west of Del Rio—part of the governor’s effort to finish the job Trump started and build a physical barrier along the Texas-Mexico border. The fence, roughly ten feet tall and a hundred feet from the Rio Grande, boasts rings of razor wire at chest level, with another complement of wire at the top. Its modest height, combined with the military-grade concertina wire, gives the effect of a Chihuahua sporting a large spiked collar.