30-Foot Border Wall Prototypes Erected In San Diego Borderlands

Competitors who are hoping to gain approval to build the border wall have until the first of next month to complete their work.

Bill Wechter for NPR

Construction crews are erecting eight looming prototypes of President Trump’s border wall in a remote section of the San Diego borderlands. Four are solid concrete; four are made of steel and concrete; one is topped with spikes. They all approach 30 feet in height. Customs and Border Protection is paying $20 million to six construction companies from Mississippi, Maryland, Alabama, Texas and Arizona. Crews in white hardhats operating cranes and forklifts are expected to complete the models by the end of the month.

Once the sections of wall are finished, CBP — parent agency of the Border Patrol — will evaluate them for three criteria.

“We want a better barrier. One that is hard to scale, hard to penetrate and hard to tunnel under,” says Roy Villareal, chief of the San Diego Border Patrol sector.