Feds to put contractors’ prototypes of southern barrier to test
SAN DIEGO — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has unveiled several border-wall prototypes that the agency said is the first step in carrying out President Donald Trump’s plan to build a barrier along the nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
Agency officials said they will test the mockups over the next few months to determine which works best in curbing illegal immigration and drug trafficking. That testing will involve punishing them to test their mettle — by workers wielding sledgehammers, torches, pickaxes and battery-operated tools.
The testing, which will take as long as two months, could lead to officials concluding that elements of several designs should be merged to create effective walls, said Ronald Vitiello, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s acting deputy commissioner. That raises the possibility of no winner or winners.
Results of the testing will dictate future wall construction, which has not yet been funded by Congress.
The testing won’t start for at least a month because some concrete in the wall prototypes still needs to dry.
Vitiello told reporters on Thursday that workers during the 30- to 60-day testing period will try to answer basic questions: “Can it be climbed? Can it be dug under? Can it withstand cutting tools?”
Despite the fanfare, the prototypes are still far from the “physically imposing” and “aesthetically pleasing” border wall that Trump promised during his campaign and ordered built shortly after assuming office. For now, Trump’s vision remains largely aspirational.
The Homeland Security Department used money from other programs to pay for the prototypes. The House Homeland Security Committee approved a bill that provides $10 billion for a border wall, but Senate The border-wall prototypes include some made of concrete and others of thick metal poles. Some are topped by round tubes, which are less vulnerable to grappling hooks than sharp edges are. Democrats have vowed to block attempts to provide funding for the wall.
In addition to approving funding, the government would have to seize land from private landowners, primarily in Texas, which is home to more than 1,200 miles of the 1,954-mile border. About 95 percent of the land in Texas is privately owned, and by some estimates, hundreds of parcels would need to be taken to construct a wall.
In 2008, when Homeland Security tried to build a border wall in the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas, more than 300 cases in which the government sought to take private land ended up in court, records show. Dozens are pending.
In deep-red Texas, where
private property is considered sacrosanct, nearly the entire congressional delegation, including most of the Republicans, opposes such a wall.
Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, one of his party’s mostoutspoken critics of the effort, said, “We should be using the money we spend on border walls to invest in technologies such as sensors, cameras and other things, which are a fraction of the cost.”
But the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports stricter limits on immigration, sees the wall as a key element in the government’s efforts to secure the border and said it would probably stem the flow of illegal drugs.
Along the Mexican border, the U.S. has 654 miles of single-layer fence, plus 51 miles of double- and triplelayer fence.
For each prototype, contractors were awarded between $300,000 and $500,000 and had a month to build them.
Each reaches the maximum allowed height of 30 feet or close to it Information from The Associated Press was included in this story.