Trump calls new border wall a ‘world-class security system’
SAN DIEGO: President Donald Trump signed his name on a newly constructed section of the US-Mexico border wall, calling it a “worldclass security system” that will be virtually impenetrable.
Trump toured a section of the border wall in San Diego’s Otay Mesa area on Wednesday.
It was a return trip for the president, who travelled there in March 2018 to see border wall prototypes that authorities later destroyed to make way for 22.4km of steel, concrete-filled bollards currently under construction.
Before construction began, the border in San Diego was protected by an initial layer of sheet metal that was easily blow-torched and a second, more formidable layer that could be compromised with powerful, battery-operated saws.
“It was like a sheet metal and people would just knock it over like just routinely,” Trump said, referring to the initial layer that was replaced.
He stood with construction workers and top Customs and Border Protection, Army Corps of Engineers and homeland security officials.
Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, defended the project, dismissing critics who call it the “president’s vanity wall”.
“I’m here to tell you that’s false,” he said, telling reporters that Trump reached out to border experts to find out what they needed. “You listened to the agents,” he told Trump. Trump highlighted features of the wall, which he said have been studied by three other countries.
He said the wall absorbs heat – “You can fry an egg on that wall.” — AP