Thirty-foot makeshift ladder appears on Trump border wall in California

Human smugglers in Mexico appear to have used a ladder made of PVC pipes to scale a 30-foot border fence in Calexico, California, according to a local report.

The fence was constructed by one or more people who designed and placed on the fence. The 10 plastic plumbing pipes every 3 feet would allow someone to climb over from one side, then descend on the other side, according to a local Mexican news outlet. Construction on the new fence started last fall as part of the Trump administration's border security enhancements.

An old photo of the shorter wall that was replaced with this taller one shows it is directly on the international border and separates a neighborhood in Calexico from a neighborhood in Mexicali in Baja California, Mexico.

Local media cited "coyotes," or Mexicans who help people illegally enter the United States, as the likely builders of the ladder.

Mexicali's director of firefighters, Ruben Osuna, said the department has received 10 calls to rescue people trapped on top of the wall. Police officers in the Mexican town have detained more than 65 people who have attempted to cross the fence or damage it.

"Any characterization that the wall isn’t working is simply false," a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman wrote in an email. "The wall is working and is providing additional capability that Border Patrol agents have asked for. What we’re building is a wall system, which includes cameras, sensors, infrastructure and border patrol agents to ensure we ultimately apprehend the criminals trying to defeat it. When someone builds a ladder in attempts to illegally enter the United States and a border patrol agent is standing there to arrest them because of the technology that gave them a heads up, that’s a win."

However, it was not clear whether an agent or camera detected the ladder being built or while it was being used.

In January, Border Patrol and the San Diego Fire Department rescued three people stuck on top of the fence in southwestern California. In December 2019, a photojournalist captured others using a rope ladder to get over the fence in a way similar to the latest attempt in Mexicali.