Trump’s walls take shape

ELECTION PROMISE: EIGHT PROTOTYPES BUILT ON MEXICAN BORDER, DESPITE NO COST ESTIMATE

Tests will show how easy they would be to scale.

San Diego

Nine months after President Donald Trump took office, the first tangible signs of progress on one of the central promises of his campaign have appeared along the US border with Mexico.

A couple of kilometres from the bustling Otay Mesa border crossing in San Diego, eight towering chunks of concrete and steel stand as high as 9m against the sky, possible models for what Trump has promised will one day be a solid wall extending the full length of the southern border, from California to Texas.

Whether any of the eight different prototypes become part of an actual wall remains uncertain.

The US Congress has so far shown little interest in appropriating the estimated $21.6 billion (nearly R300 billion) it would cost to build the wall.

Still, border patrol officials welcomed the momentum on Trump’s pledge, which generated a groundswell of voter support.

Currently, 1 052km of the 3 058km border with Mexico is fenced, with single, double or triple fences. The second line of fencing in San Diego, about 5.5m tall, has been breached nearly 2 000 times in the past three years.

Six contractors from across the country were selected to build the eight prototypes, all of which will be completed this week.

In late November, a private company will test the protoypes over 30 to 60 days to determine how easy they would be to climb over or dig beneath. – Reuters

Picture: AFP BLOCKED. A child at the border wall observes the ‘Not Walls’ demonstration by activists in the US in front of the wall that divides Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, from Sunland Park, New Mexico.