By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Wednesday, August 2, 2017

President Trump gets updates on his proposed border wall but his suggestions won’t affect the design and he’s being kept in the dark about the prototypes being contemplated, per federal contracting rules, a Homeland Security spokesman said Wednesday.

Mr. Trump has in the past suggested the wall should be fitted with solar panels and the energy sold to help pay for the costs, and also said a see-through wall was critical to giving Border Patrol agents a sense for what’s going on in Mexico.

None of that will influence the contract, though, said David Lapan, deputy assistant secretary at Homeland Security.

“The president, while he has been and continues to be briefed on the wall writ large — the progress, sort of how we are doing in fulfilling his order to secure the border — the prototype process is in the federal procurement process and the president is not involved in that at all,” Mr. Lapan said.

The spokesman said the president is very interested in the project and regularly asked for updates from department officials, both on the wall and on progress toward securing the border, but details on the ongoing competition to select prototypes is compartmentalized.

“He’s not been briefed on any of the specifics,” Mr. Lapan said.

Mr. Lapan also said Mr. Trump’s plans to add 10,000 new deportation officers and 5,000 more Border Patrol agents to current staffing levels could change, depending on how the hiring goes.

Then-candidate Trump had promised those numbers during the campaign as part of his vow for a deportation force to tackle illegal immigration.

But a Homeland Security inspector general’s report earlier this week said the department hasn’t been able to justify those numbers, and said giving hiring hurdles it require 750,000 applications to hire that number of border agents, and 500,000 applicants to fill the positions at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mr. Lapan said the hiring numbers were set by the White House and there is no “specific justification” for them, but said the numbers are always being evaluated.

The border has seen dramatic improvements in stemming the flow of unauthorized migrants in the six months since Mr. Trump took office, though drug seizures remain high.

The president has offered his wall as a solution to both problems.

Former Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly signed a waiver giving his department exemptions from 37 laws that could have hindered construction of the new wall prototypes. Among the waivers are some of the country’s most iconic environmental, religious and Native American protection laws.

Mr. Lapan said they still intend to follow the laws as best they can, but the waivers were meant to speed up construction so it doesn’t get bogged down.

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