President Donald Trump looks set to ask Congress for more than $4 billion for his much touted border wall, and proposal requests issued by the Department of Homeland Security have asked for a "physically imposing" wall at least 30 feet high.
ADVERTISEMENT
'We're not going to put it on our side': Trump's interior secretary raises doubts about the border wall
Trump's interior secretary suggested on Tuesday that parts of the wall may not be on US territory, or even get built at all.
Trump on the campaign trail at a news conference near the US-Mexico border outside Laredo, Texas.
But recent comments from Trump's interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, cast doubt on just how imposing parts of that wall will be, if they get built at all.
"I don't know how that would work," Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, and who opposes a full-length border wall, told The Dallas Morning News. "When I hear the president talk about a wall, to me I think he's speaking metaphorically."
“Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border,” Texas Republican Congressman Will Hurd said in late January. "Each section of the border faces unique geographical, cultural, and technological challenges that would be best addressed with a flexible, sector-by-sector approach that empowers the agents on the ground with the resources they need."
ADVERTISEMENT
Texans on the border whose land could be in the path of a wall have also praised electronic measures, as well as personnel on the ground, as the better way to go.
Zinke's comments also raised the complicated rights issues concerning the Rio Grande, which provides water to people and industry on both sides of the border.
Some have interpreted his remarks as a hint that some or all of the wall could be constructed on Mexican territory, but given Mexicans' strong rebuke of Trump's insistence they pay for the wall, such a proposal is almost certainly a nonstarter.
Trump's administration, however, appears to be gearing up to solve one of the land-use issues confronting it.
On January 12, Texans along the Rio Grande received notices from the US government offering them money for their land. They have the right to refuse the offer, but the government could then be able to seize it through eminent domain.
JOIN OUR PULSE COMMUNITY!
ADVERTISEMENT
Eyewitness? Submit your stories now via social or:
Email: eyewitness@pulse.ng
ADVERTISEMENT