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Trump aims high with 30-feet border wall

A pledge to build a new Mexico border wall was a major Trump election pledge.

A pledge to build a new Mexico border wall was a major Trump election pledge. Photo: Getty

The Trump administration wants to make their proposed Mexico border wall 30-feet (9.14 m) high and make sure it is difficult to climb or cut through, according to a pair of contract notices posted to a government website further detailing President Donald Trump’s promise to build a “big, beautiful wall” at the Mexican border.

The notices were made public late Friday by Customs and Border Protection and one of the CBP contract requests calls for a solid concrete wall, while the other asks for proposals for a see-through structure.

Both require the wall to be sunk at least six feet into the ground and include 25- and 50-foot (15.24 m) automated gates for pedestrians and vehicles.

The proposed wall must also be built in a such a way that it would take at least an hour to cut through it with a “sledgehammer, car jack, pick axe, chisel, battery operated impact tools, battery operated cutting tools, Oxy/acetylene torch or other similar hand-held tools.”

This is the second time the Trump administration has asked for private companies to bid on building the wall.

Last month CPB put out a call for “concept papers” to design and build prototypes by March 10.

Trump has bragged in recent days that the wall is ahead of schedule, though it’s unclear from the latest contract notices if any firms have submitted wall proposals or if any such submissions have been rejected.
The government has not said where the wall will be built, though the contract notices suggest some pieces of a new wall could replace existing fencing that stretches over about 700 miles (1,127 km) of the roughly 2,000 mile (3,219 km) border.

Trump has long promised that Mexico would pay for the wall, which he has said is necessary to stop the flow of immigrants crossing the border illegally and drug smugglers.

This week the president sent a budget proposal to Congress that included a $2.6 billion down payment for the wall.

The total cost for the project is unclear, but the Government Accountability Office estimates it would cost about $6.5 million a mile for fence to keep pedestrians from crossing the border and about $1.8 million a mile for a vehicle barrier.

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