President Donald Trump will finally head to California in mid-March to view potential border wall prototypes and learn more about the possible construction of the wall.
The president will also visit Los Angeles to attend a Republican National Committee fundraiser, according to The Washington Post.
Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico has been a hard and fast campaign pledge.
The president still maintains that Mexico will pay for the wall eventually, adding that American taxpayers will front the cost until they do.
President Donald Trump will finally head to California in mid-March to view potential border wall prototypes and learn more about the possible construction of the wall
All eight wall prototypes have been completed on the US border of Mexico
Trump’s trip to view the prototypes has been put off a few times, mainly because some of his aides have been leery of a trip to the border that may prompt protests.
More recently, Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto postponed plans for the Mexican leader’s first visit to the White House, after a testy phone call involving Trump’s push for the border wall, a senior US official said on Saturday.
‘The two leaders agreed now was not the immediate right time for a visit but that they would have their teams continue to talk and work together,’ the official said.
Mexican officials had been talking about a summit between Trump and Pena Nieto in the next few weeks, without specifying when.
The two leaders spoke for about 50 minutes on Tuesday, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the delay earlier on Saturday.
But the discussion led to an impasse when Trump would not agree to publicly affirm Mexico’s position that it would not fund construction of the wall along the US-Mexico border.
A Mexican official said Trump lost his temper during the conversation, the newspaper reported.
But it said US officials described Trump as frustrated and exasperated, because he believed it was unreasonable for Pena Nieto to want him to back off his campaign promise of forcing Mexico to pay for the wall.
DailyMail.com obtained a drone’s view of the fully completed border wall prototypes in October 2017.
Maryland’s ETLA North America Inc is an Israeli defense company. This wall by ETLA uses a concrete at the base with the top two-thirds featuring blue metal panels
Caddell Construction Co, LLC, of Montgomery, Alabama created two walls, this one features metal bars for the first half, narrowly spaced and resembling the bollard-style fencing which allows CBP to see to the otherside, the top half has solid concrete panels
Caddell Construction Co, LLC, of Montgomery, Alabama, was awarded a contract for this concrete structure with a slope on the US side and a flat surface towards the Mexican border
Arizona’s Fisher Sand & Gravel structure was among the first to be completed with concrete blending with the desert it sits in
Texas Sterling Construction Co. of Houston built this prototype of concrete with fencing at the top pointing towards Mexico
A total of eight border wall prototypes have been erected by several companies.
The companies who built the prototypes include Maryland’s ETLA North America Inc, Caddell Construction Co, LLC, of Alabama, which built two, one wall by Texas Sterling Construction Co. of Houston, one wall by Arizona’s Fisher Sand & Gravel and a wall by KWR Construction of Sierra Vista of Arizona.
Two others that sit furthest west were constructed by W. G. Yates & Sons Construction Company Mississippi.
Of the eight contracts doled out in the Customs and Border Protection search, they awarded four to be made of concrete and four to be made of material other than concrete.
The walls all have striking features ranging from slats that allow CBP to see through to the other side, another has a slope on the US side and a completely straight wall facing Mexico, while another has a fence jutting over its Mexican side.
Another has blue metal on its top portion.
The wall prototypes were constructed in the California desert, near San Diego abutting the run down neighborhood of Tijuana, Mexico.
Roy Villareal, acting chief patrol agent of the San Diego border sector said the requirements to adhere to Trump’s vision call for ‘a fence that is impenetrable and unscalable’.
This is a full shot of how the walls during construction in October 2017
This graphic shows how President Donald Trump (pictured centre right) is planning the US/Mexico wall
‘They can’t dig under it. They can’t cut through it,’ Villareal added.
ustoms and Border Protection may pick several winners, or none. Villarreal said another contractor will evaluate each model, which will be up to 30 feet high and 30 feet long.
‘It may not result in a singular winner. It may be a combination of designs being implemented,’ Villarreal said.
Construction began at the end of September, after being stalled three months when firms that didn’t win contracts protested.
Announcing the start of construction in September Vitiello, said in a statement: ‘We are committed to securing our border and that includes constructing border walls.’
‘Our multi-pronged strategy to ensure the safety and security of the American people includes barriers, infrastructure, technology and people.’
A man peeks through a hole in the existing border wall from the Mexican side at several border wall prototypes being built in San Diego in October 2017
The cost of the eight contracts ranges from $320,000 to $480,000.
Funding to extend the current wall beyond its distance of 654 miles, however is in doubt.
Democrats have balked at Trump’s $1.6 billion request to replace 14 miles in San Diego and build 60 miles in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings.
Most of the prototypes seemed to be concrete-based, contradicting Trump’s original comments that the wall would be see through.
CBP will take a few weeks to test each prototype, determining how quickly and easily they can be breached, and analyzing how effectively the companies incorporated anti-climbing mechanisms, see-through capabilities and other security features.