Pointed tops. Fewer gates. Climb-resistant. The president’s frequently changing design requests have frustrated Homeland Security officials and military engineers.
Border barrier prototypes stand in the San Diego area in April 2018. President Trump has been intensely interested in the design and appearance of the project.
Trump also has repeatedly summoned the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite, to impart his views on the barrier’s properties, demanding that the structure be physically imposing but also aesthetically pleasing. Homeland Security officials had settled on the steel bollard design many years earlier, but Lapan said many of the prototypes were built using concrete to suit the president’s tastes — and demonstrated that the material was impractical and vulnerable to breaches.
The president’s critics are determined to stop or slow down a project they denounce as a wasteful monument to the president’s vanity — more symbolic than security-minded along a border that cannot be completely walled off because of rugged geography and the Rio Grande. “He thinks not only can the wall be effective, it doesn’t have to be an eyesore,” a DHS official said. “He wants one standard uniform height. That’s what he’s going for, and we have to match that with operational reality.”
He continued to insist on speeding up construction, blanching at suggestions from aides that it would take many years, according to former administration officials. Trump frequently delved into the minutiae of contracts and suggested that some of his friends in New York would have ideas on how to build it faster, officials said.
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