We all know by now that President Trump talks big. He thinks big, and acts big. And if you ask the more than one million families his policies have returned to financial stability, he has a big heart.
He promised during his campaign that on day one in the White House he would start work on the southern border wall. Well, it’s been just over seven months since he took office and work on the wall is yet to get started in earnest.
Of course, it’s only fair to admit that he’s had to deal with an enormous amount of obstructionism not only from the Left but from NeverTrumpers in his own party. And the criticism has been coming not only from the opposition but from major supporters like Ann Coulter, who has expressed her great disappointment at Trump’s failure to make the wall real as yet.
However, it looks like the shovels are about ready to come out of the shed as some major preliminary motions have now been made in constructing the wall. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has finally made an important determination in selection contractors to do the actual work on the wall. DHS announced recently that the agency has selected four construction contractors to build prototypes for the wall and that, according to CNN, work on these preliminary models will begin this Winter.
The announcement follows a complaint from a number of contractors who claim that their bids were unfairly overlooked by DHS. In a move that is uncharacteristically responsive for a Washington entity, the complaint spurred DHS to speed up the selection process, the results of which were released last week.
Ronald Vitiello, the acting deputy for the office of Customs and Border Protection said that the preliminary designs will be built along the border of San Diego. The four companies competing will be the Caddell Construction Co, Texas Sterling Construction Co, W. G. Yates & Sons, and Fisher Sand & Gravel Co.
As it turns out, building a wall large enough to cover several hundred miles of Texas/Mexico borderland that’s strong enough to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country is not as simple as just building a massive wall. The wall has to be staffed and monitored. It has to be strong. It has to be see-through. And it has to extend beneath the earth to a sufficient degree as to prevent an amount of tunneling that would otherwise render the wall useless.
What’s more, the region where the wall will be expected to perform its function is a particularly harsh stretch of desert where conditions would render most structures useless in a few short years. The final product should be a wall that is resistant to tampering, low maintenance, and yet sophisticated enough to do the job of securing our border reliably.
So, while Trump may have spoken out of turn when he said he would get started on this truly massive project right away so have his critics. It seems we have all been a bit overly ready to come to conclusions and submit our comments on the topic.
But now, the government has entered into the serious process of compelling contractors to compete by developing a series of wall designs which will be rigorously tested over the next year or so.
In response to the complaint about delaying the selection process, the CBP said, “[We] did note that once contracts are awarded, companies will have another opportunity to protest, which could add further delays. Nevertheless, we are confident in our processes, and we will proceed deliberately, to ensure compliance with the law. The prototypes will “help us create a ‘design standard’ for operational walls. The new designs would be added to our menu of existing designs, and allow us to tailor a specific wall design to the unique demands of individual areas of the border.”
Proponents of the wall should take heart that the agency is taking the task as seriously as it is. Many critics of the wall policy have complained that the idea could never work, and surely if construction had begun immediately the result would have been nothing more than a token gesture to Trump voters who chose him on this singularly important national security issue.
Funding for the selection process came from a $20 million dollar funding bill passed through congress which gives DHS the authority to move forward. The bill was largely instigated by an executive order signed by the President on his first day in office.
~ American Liberty Report
