<P> As of January 2010, the fence project had been completed from San Diego, California to Yuma, Arizona . From there it continued into Texas and consisted of a fence that was 21 feet (6.4 m) tall and 6 feet (1.8 m) deep in the ground, cemented in a 3 - foot (0.91 m) - wide trench with 5,000 psi (345 bar; 352 kg / cm2) concrete . There were no fatalities during construction, but there were 4 serious injuries with multiple aggressive acts against building crews . There was one reported shooting with no injury to a crew member in the Mexicali region . All fence sections are south of the All - American Canal, and have access roads giving border guards the ability to reach any point easily, including the dunes area where a border agent was killed 3 years prior and is now sealed off . </P> <P> The Republican Party's 2012 platform stated that "The double - layered fencing on the border that was enacted by Congress in 2006, but never completed, must finally be built ." The Secure Fence Act's costs were estimated at $6 billion, more than the Customs and Border Protection's entire annual discretionary budget of $5.6 billion . The Washington Office on Latin America noted on its Border Fact Check site in 2013 that the cost of complying with the Secure Fence Act's mandate was the reason it had not been completely fulfilled . </P> <P> The Real ID Act, attached as a rider to a supplemental appropriations bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, decreed, "Not withstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive all legal requirements such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads ." Secretary Chertoff used his new power to "waive in their entirety" the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act to extend triple fencing through the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve near San Diego . The Real ID Act further stipulates that the Secretary's decisions are not subject to judicial review, and in December 2005 a federal judge dismissed legal challenges by the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and others to Chertoff's decision . </P> <P> Secretary Chertoff exercised his waiver authority on April 1, 2008 . In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of a lower court ruling upholding the waiver authority in a case filed by the Sierra Club . In September 2008 a federal district court judge in El Paso dismissed a similar lawsuit brought by El Paso County, Texas . </P>

When was the fence built on the border