Tommy Fisher, through his company Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. built a 3-mile wall in Rio Grande Texas. The project, which was mostly financed by his own company, is now looking for buyers to recover some of the money or perhaps extend it further down the border.
As reported by Bloomberg, Fisher’s wall consists of roughly 15,000 18-foot-tall gray steel bollards, spaced 5 inches apart and set in a wide concrete foundation.
After constant efforts to lobby money from possible investors or score a contract with the government, in 2019 Fisher was granted $1.5 million by the infamous We Built the Wall, the crowdsourcing initiative co-led by Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was indicted for defrauding donors.
Later In the spring of 2019, he was granted $6.9 million from WBTW for the first barrier, but they must have lost interest, as the following payments never came and Fisher was left to finance the project on his own.
But money was not the only obstacle he faced, as the National Butterfly Center sitting very close to Fisher’s border sued him over allegations that diverting water in a flood event could threaten the center.
He then faced another lawsuit, but this time from the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), which argued diverted water could end up displacing the U.S.-Mexico borderline.
According to Insider, despite both lawsuits, Fisher continued to sink money into his wall project, because he believed he was building the “Lamborghini” of walls and someone would buy it.
What seems to be a tough buy especially after President Joe Biden stopped wall construction, is still a beacon of hope for Fisher, as he believes that as long as migration remains a pressing issue, a big wall will be needed.“If I only did 1,000 or 2,000 feet, everyone’s going to make fun,” he says. “No one can really make fun of this.” Said Tommy Fisher.