For border wall, looks a plus, hard climb a must Young adults: Trump illegitimate
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration wants to build a 30-foothigh border wall that looks good from the north side and is difficult to climb or cut through, according to a pair of contract notices posted to a government website further detailing President Donald Trump’s promise to build a “big, beautiful wall” at the Mexican border.
The notices were made public late Friday by Customs and Border Protection, the Homeland Security Department agency that will oversee the project and eventually patrol and maintain the wall.
One of the CBP contract requests calls for a solid concrete wall, while the other asks for proposals for a see-through structure. It must also be built in a such a way that it would take at least an hour to cut through it with a “sledgehammer, car jack, pickax, chisel, battery operated impact tools, battery operated cutting tools, Oxy/acetylene torch or other similar hand-held tools.”
Trump has bragged that the wall is ahead of schedule,
A majority of young adults — 57 percent — see Trump’s presidency as illegitimate, including about three-quarters of blacks and large majorities of Latinos and Asians, the GenForward poll found.
GenForward is a poll of adults age 18 to 30 conducted by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
A majority of young whites in the poll, 53 percent, consider Trump a legitimate president, but even among that group 55 percent disapprove of the job he’s doing. though it’s unclear if any firms have submitted proposals.
The contract notices suggest pieces of a new wall could replace fencing over about 700 miles of the roughly 2,000-mile border. The current fencing of mixed construction includes 15-foot steel posts set inches apart designed to stop people and shorter posts to block cars. Border Patrol agents constantly repair holes in the structure.
Trump has long promised Mexico would pay for the wall, which he has said is necessary to stop immigrants and illegal drugs.
Last week the president sent a budget proposal to Congress that included a $2.6 billion down payment for the wall. The Government Accountability Office estimates it would cost about $6.5 million a mile for fence to keep pedestrians from crossing the border and about $1.8 million a mile for a vehicle barrier.
Meanwhile, on Saturday Trump said that Germany NATO and the U.S. “must be paid more” for providing defense.
Trump tweeted the day after meeting with Germany’s leader.
“Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,” he wrote. “Nevertheless, Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”