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Get an Early Glimpse of Trump's 30-Foot Border Wall Prototypes

CBN

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Just south of San Diego, in the Otay Mesa community, we're getting an early glimpse at what President Trump's proposed border wall might look like.

Six companies are competing for the chance at a major construction contract.

The companies have just thirty days to build a total of 8 prototypes. Designs must also meet specific requirements.
 
"Anti-Climbing, anti-digging, anti-scaling, they have to be safe for the border patrol agents who work the area," said Border Patrol Agent Eduardo Olmos.
 
Agent Olmos wouldn't break down the companies' tactics, but you can clearly see spikes on at least one model. Another is being built with a bit of a slant, and yet another contains an anti-climbing texture.
 
The massive prototypes will be 30 feet high and 30 feet wide. The cost is between $300,000 to $500,000 each, however since the final design is yet to be chosen, exact estimates aren't available.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security internal report estimates the wall could cost more than $21-billion and that doesn't include the cost to maintain it.

But it will be less than the current fencing, which agents say costs $55 million a year to maintain.
 
The wall has been a centerpiece of the president's campaign to "make America great again." But it has sparked a lot of controversy.

Still, the concept is nothing new.
 
Olmos says before the wall was built along his sector near San Diego in the early 1990's, approximately 600,000 people were arrested in one year.
 
He says the current wall has made a difference, but can be improved.
 
 "Unfortunately," Olmos explained, "they just sit on the ground and rudimentary tunnels can be dug underneath them, very easily."
 
Ironically, the prototype construction comes at a time when border crossings are down.
 
According to the Office of Immigration Statistics, people attempting to illegally cross into any state along the U.S. border are unsuccessful 55 to 85 percent the time.
 
Yet assaults on border patrol agents in this sector number 83 this year, that's an increase over last year, when 52 assaults occurred, but nowhere near the peak in 2008, when agents recorded 377 assaults.
 
So how will the prototypes be tested? Homeland Security tells CBN News that's a secret. The agency did add that teams will grade which prototypes are hardest to scale, dig under, or break through -- and it won't take place in the public eye.

As for actually getting built, the political path is messy and some lawmakers purposely misinform the public as to what is being proposed.

First, the CBP is not proposing a 2,200-mile wall from San Diego, Calif, to Brownsville, Texas. That is not realistic, necessary or affordable.

Seccond, existing law calls for 700 miles of "double fencing." The U.S. doesn't have that. Under the 2006 Secure Fence Act, the federal government only completed 350 miles of fence, and only in select areas are there two fences.

Many argue Congress has already authorized another 300 miles of barrier. Whether it's called a fence or a wall is politics.

 

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