Trump wants to build 30-foot-high wall at Mexican border
Trump wants to build 30-foot-high wall at Mexican border
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Trump administration wants to build a 30-foot-high 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. The proposals are due to the government by March 29.
One of the CBP contract requests calls for a solid concrete wall, while the other asks for proposals for a see-through structure. Both require the wall to sunk at least six feet into the ground and include 25- and 50-foot automated gates for pedestrians and vehicles. The proposed wall 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, pick axe, chisel, battery operated impact tools, battery operated cutting tools, Oxy/acetylene torch or other similar hand-held tools."
The government will award a contract based on 30-foot-wide sample walls that are to be built in San Diego.
This is the second time the Trump administration has asked for private companies to bid on building the wall. Last month CPB put out a call for "concept papers" to design and build prototypes by March 10.
Trump has bragged in recent days that the wall is ahead of schedule, though it's unclear from the latest contract notices if any firms have submitted wall proposals or if any such submissions have been rejected.
The government has not said where the wall will be built, though the contract notices suggest some pieces of a new wall could replace existing fencing that stretches over about 700 miles of the roughly 2,000-mile border. The current fencing of mixed construction, including 15-foot steel posts set inches apart that are designed to keep people from crossing and shorter posts that are intended to block cars. Border Patrol agents are constantly repairing holes in the structure.
Trump has long promised that Mexico would pay for the wall, which he has said is necessary to stop the flow of immigrants crossing the border illegally and drug smugglers.
This week the president sent a budget proposal to Congress that included a $2.6 billion down payment for the wall. The total cost for the project is unclear, but 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.
Congressional Republicans have said Trump's wall would cost between $12 billion and $15 billion and Trump has suggested $12 billion.
An internal report prepared for Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly estimated the cost of building a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border at about $21 billion, according to a U.S. government official who is involved in border issues. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public.
That report proposed an initial phase that would extend fences 26 miles and a second wave that would add 151 miles, plus 272 "replacement" miles where fences are already installed, according to the official. Those two phases would cost $5 billion.
It is unclear how soon Congress might act on that request or how much money lawmakers will ultimately approve for the wall. Democrats and some Republicans have said a border-long wall is unnecessary.
The Department of Homeland Security reported earlier this month that the number of border arrests dropped about 44 percent from January to February, the lowest monthly tallies since at the least the start of the 2012 budget year.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...03-18-11-33-28
President Trump wants border wall to be tall, imposing
President Trump wants border wall to be tall, imposing
http://twt-thumbs.washtimes.com/medi...cf10b195402742
Protestors dressed as a diabolical Uncle Sam, on stilts, and Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto hold hands as they walk along the
border fence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017. A group of about 30 protestors gathered to ..
The Washington Times - Sunday, March 19, 2017 President Trump’s is eyeing a 30-foot border wall, and wants it to be particularly imposing to would-be illegal immigrants pondering an attempt to sneak into the U.S. from Mexico, Homeland Security officials said in contract documents released Friday as the administration officially solicited bids to build the barrier.
Still to be decided is whether the wall will be concrete or some other design. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) solicited prototypes for both.
But officials wanted to make sure it’s big and scary.
“The wall design shall be physically imposing in height,” CBP officials said in contracting documents.
They said it must be a minimum of 18 feet, and their “nominal” goal is actually a wall that looms some 30 feet above the ground. The wall must also run at least six feet underground to stop anyone easily tunneling underneath it.
And it must take at least an hour, and ideally more than four hours, for someone to puncture a hole in the wall — presumably enough time for agents to discover and chase away anyone attempting it.
The side that faces the U.S. must be easy on the eyes, too, the documents say.
The requests for proposals for both concrete and non-concrete walls come less than two months into the new administration, and signal Mr. Trump’s eagerness to get started on his signature campaign proposal.
Just a day earlier, the White House released its first budget calling for about $1 billion to begin building the wall over the next six months, and called for more than $2 billion in fiscal year 2018.
The contracting documents don’t give a hint as to the eventual scope of the wall, but Mr. Trump’s budget suggested it would in fact run the nearly 2,000 miles of the border. And the documents did call for designs that would work on a 45-degree slope, indicating a desire to build fencing even along mountainous areas where the border patrol had previously thought barriers unnecessary.
Currently about 654 miles of the border have a barrier — 354 miles of that is a type of pedestrian fence, while the other 300 miles are vehicle barriers designed to stop cars and trucks, but which easily let people and animals through.
The existing pedestrian fencing varies in design, but types of fence that have alternative slats allowing Border Patrol agents to see through to the Mexican side are preferred because they help cut down on ambushes by rock-throwers, according to a recent government audit.
That could be a problem for the concrete wall design. Indeed the solicitation for the non-concrete wall specifically asks for a “see-through component” to the wall. The concrete solicitation doesn’t ask for that same consideration.
The solicitation released Friday night calls for prototypes.
When CBP first began gauging interest earlier this month some 700 companies had registered as potential vendors for building the wall. But those that do get contracts could face a backlash.
The city of Berkeley, California, said last week it would refuse to do business with any company that’s part of the border wall.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ill-be-tall-i/
