‘We Build the Wall’ is a privately funded project that started on GoFundMe and raised more than $20 million to build small sections of border wall on private property. As Jazz pointed out last month, the construction has actually completed some sections of an 18-foot bollard-style steel wall in an area near El Paso.

Yesterday, the group held a “Wall-a-thon” fundraiser to push for more money to continue building in other places. In connection with that, Austen Fletcher, aka FleccasTalks, produced a clip interviewing some of the people involved in the project including Steve Bannon and the foreman on the project (Foreman Mike).

Standing beside the newly completed section of wall, Bannon said, “They thought that this was basically impassable and in the old days it used to be.” He continued, “Remember the cartels have made a business of this. The cartels are running both drugs through here and particularly people. Remember, sex trafficking and human trafficking is the higher margin business for the cartels than even drugs. So what drove this as sort of a highway for the cartels is that…it didn’t have a wall.”

The foreman on the project said, “Four hundred people a night were coming through here on average.” He added, “There have been no crossings in 24 days.”

A bit later, Foreman Mike offered a realistic perspective about what this effort could achieve. “We’re not going to stop everybody. We’re not trying to stop everybody. This is a deterrent for the masses.”

The goal of this private effort has never been to take over for the federal government. Even at the reduced rate per mile they achieved, it would cost billions to put up a wall spanning even a portion of the open southern border. The goal of this effort, as Bannon says, is to take on special projects on private land like the one they just completed.

Here’s the full Fleccas Talks video. Below that is a time-lapse showing the construction of the just completed portion of the wall.

Time-lapse: