Trump calls for 700 miles to 900 miles of border wall

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump doesn’t see the need for a proposed border wall to stretch the length of the roughly 2,000-mile frontier with Mexico.

Instead, he envisions “anywhere from 700 to 900 miles” of see-through wall.

Trump’s comments on the wall are the most definitive description he has given on what became a primary campaign promise. During the campaign vowed to oversee construction of a “big beautiful wall, with a big beautiful door” to let approved immigrants come into the United States.

But on his way to Paris, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “It’s a 2,000 mile border, but you don’t need 2,000 miles of wall because you have a lot of natural barriers. You have mountains. You have some rivers that are violent and vicious. You have some areas that are so far away that you don’t really have people crossing.”

Trump’s remarks were informal and initially not allowed to be reported. The White House later provided a partial transcript of them.

There are already about 650 miles of fencing along the border, all of which is see-through.

The Mexican border in much of Texas is defined by the Rio Grande, though parts of that river are little more than a trickle of water. About 24 miles of the border in Arizona is marked by the Colorado River. Trump also said the wall “needs transparency.” “You have to be able to see through it,” Trump said, adding that border agents need to know what or who is on the other side of the fence to avoid being hit by sacks of drugs and other contraband.

“As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see them. They hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It’s over,” Trump said.