“Build the Wall” - this battle cry could be heard at almost every event Donald Trump was campaigning for the 2016 presidential election.
With the alleged bulwark against immigrants from Central and South America, the future president successfully vied for votes.
"Nobody builds walls better than me," the real estate entrepreneur had announced.
Now, five years later, Trump has lost his post in the White House - and the Wall doesn't seem to be doing too well either.
The US website Gizmodo has published pictures showing severe damage to the structure.
According to the website, they were created in the desert state of Arizona.
The recordings show flood gates on the wall that were literally unhinged by rainfall.
According to Gizmodo, six flood gates alone were damaged on a single section of the half-finished wall.
As the newspaper "Tucson Sentinel" reports, the rain also damaged the building in other places.
According to the Washington Post, the development is not surprising.
According to this, experts would have warned of the problem with the flood gates as early as 2020, when Trump was still in office.
Like much of the state of Arizona, the area is extremely dry.
In the monsoon season, however, sometimes extreme rainfall with flooding can occur.
Because of this danger, according to the experts, the flood gates should have been opened in the rainy season to be on the safe side.
This is done by hand in the inaccessible region.
Then they would have remained open and partly unguarded for a long time.
Or the gates should have remained closed - despite the risk of storm damage.
Funds no longer flow
Shortly after taking office, Trump's successor Joe Biden had promised to stop the billion-dollar wall project.
The Ministry of Defense implemented this requirement in May.
The Pentagon was ending "all border wall construction projects that were paid for with money originally earmarked for other military purposes," said Deputy Ministry spokesman Jamal Brown at the time.
Trump originally wanted to oblige Mexico to bear the cost of building the wall.
In doing so, however, he failed - despite all the promises made in the election campaign.
After Congress denied him the necessary funds for the project, he declared a national emergency in 2019 and ordered the diversion of billions of dollars from the Pentagon budget into the construction projects.
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