Trump’s border wall taking shape (in models)
SAN DIEGO — The last two of eight prototypes for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall took shape Thursday at a construction site in San Diego.
The prototypes form a tightly packed row of imposing concrete and metal panels, including one with sharp metal edges on top. Another has a surface resembling an expensive brick driveway.
Companies have until Oct. 26 to finish the models but Border Patrol spokesperson Theron Francisco said the last two came into profile, with crews installing a corrugated metal surface on the eighth model on a dirt lot just a few steps from homes in Tijuana, Mexico.
As the crews worked, three men and two women from Nepal, ages 19 to 30, jumped a short rusted fence from Tijuana into the construction site and were immediately stopped by agents on horseback.
Francisco said there have been four or five other illegal crossing attempts at the site.
The models, which cost the government up to $500,000 each, were spaced 9 metres apart. Slopes, thickness and curves vary. One has two shades of blue with white trim. The others are grey, tan or brown — in sync with the desert.
Bidding guidelines call for the prototypes to stand between 5.5 and 9 metres high and be able to withstand at least an hour of punishment from a sledgehammer, pickaxe, torch, chisel or battery-operated tools.
Features also should prevent the use of climbing aids such as grappling hooks, and the segments must be “esthetically pleasing” when viewed from the U.S. side.
The administration hasn’t said how many winners it will pick or whether Trump will weigh in himself.
There is currently 1,052 kilometres of single-layer fence on the 3,143-kilometre border, plus 82 kilometres of double- and triple-layer fence.
“I’m sure they will engage in a lot of tests against these structures to see how they function with different challenges,” U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, said after touring the construction site.
Trump has asked Congress for $1.6 billion to replace 22.4 kilometres of wall in San Diego and build 100 kilometres in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings.