is anyone saying that any barrier is a stand alone option and doesn't need patrolling plus other security methods?
In the beginning, there was a tweet.
At 4:34 p.m. Aug. 5, 2014, Mr. Trump sent a message: “SECURE THE BORDER! BUILD THE WALL!”
Mr. Trump’s definition of “wall” has been a moving target since.
In the early days of the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump said the wall should be built of “precast concrete” with “no windows, no nothing.” He now says that he always meant that steel and “see-through” materials could work, too, and has, from time to time, mused about festooning the wall with solar panels. In December, he tweeted an image showing a puzzling rendering of a picketed “Steel Slat Barrier.”
Soon after taking office, the president commissioned eight prototypes of wall designs, four made of concrete and the remainder fabricated from steel and other materials. They ranged in height from 18 to 30 feet.
The models were tested last year, and the results were inconclusive, according to leaked documents showing that all of them could be breached with a determined effort and the right tools. But Trump administration officials say that the testing provided them with valuable information, and lessons learned were incorporated into an already built section of slatted 30-foot-high “bollard” fence near Calexico, Calif.
As Mr. Trump’s image of the wall changed, so did its price tag. He now wants $5.7 billion for the wall — but that number has bounced between $4 billion and $20 billion over the past three years. During the shutdown fight, he even suggested that he would accept an unspecified “down payment.”
Democrats have embraced the phrase
border security, meant to describe a comprehensive approach that includes
improvements in technology, new surveillance programs and increases in Border Patrol staffing. [LINK]
