United States: the anti-immigration wall could be made of hemp

Following repeated refusals by Congress to allocate the funds needed to build America's infamous anti-immigration wall, some of Trump's most fervent and powerful supporters have decided to resort to private funding. They met last week in Texas, in a small town near the border, to identify land suitable for their wall. With one idea in mind: build it out of hemp.

A private wall built with hemp

The initiative originally came from Kolfage, a far-right veteran who has launched a crowdfunding campaign to provide the Trump administration with the funds it had been denied. Nevertheless, since Congressional approval is still required to initiate a public project, The campaign has evolved into a non-profit organization that is raising funds to build a private wall using private funds and land. According to New York Times, which mentions a phone call between Kris Kobach, one of the project's leaders, and Trump, the latter reportedly giving his «blessing» to the project.

The Wall is at the center of the American political debate since Donald Trump's campaign. The object of a budgetary tug-of-war, Trump has even closed the federal agencies for several weeks in late 2018 to protest Congress's refusal to allocate the $5.7 billion required to build the wall. In the meantime, hemp has been legalized at the federal level and it seems that it already has a consensus since Steve Bannon tells Politico that his team is evaluating the possibility of building the private wall with hemp concrete (a mixture of hemp chips and natural lime-type binders). To this end, the group has contacted the American Hemp Academy in Kansas. «You understand the irony of using hemp concrete to keep cannabis out?» Bannon reportedly added.

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A possible project?

The project could not be more serious. Bannon explains that the group has already identified 400 to 650 kilometers of private land suitable for the wall. He also estimated that a kilometer and a half of wall would cost between 1.5 and 2.5 million dollars, not to mention the cost of the land. The group is already in consultation with the Israeli company Magal Security Systems who built the wall around the Gaza Strip and who had already contacted Trump after his election to offer to build his wall.

Leon Fresco, a former employee of the Immigration Bureau of the Department of Justice, is skeptical about the project's relevance: «They won't get very far with 20 to 30 million dollars». The group has already raised $20 million, and some like Kris Kobach are very optimistic, believing they can raise $100 million in the project's first year, enough to build around 50 kilometers of wall. However, Leon Fresco points out that the project could also run into problems with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior. It will surely take more than this to discourage the team of conservators at «We build the Wall».