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EIGHT PROTOTYPES OF US President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall were unveiled on Thursday at the Mexican border.
The concrete and steel structures, erected in a remote area in San Diego, will be tested for 30 to 60 days to determine which design meets the needs to secure the border, US Customs and Border Patrol Protection said in a statement.
“Border security contributes to our overall national security and relies on a combination of border infrastructure, technology, personnel, and partnerships,” the agency’s acting deputy commissioner Ron Vitiello said.
“Border walls have proven to be an extremely effective part of our multi-pronged security strategy to prevent the illegal migration of people and drugs over the years.”
Here are the eight ‘samples’.
Wall One:
Wall Two:
Wall Three:
Wall Four:
Wall Five:
Wall Six:
Wall Seven:
Wall Eight:
Authorities said that in considering the mockups – built by six companies from across the United States – they will evaluate a number of characteristics including anti-breaching, anti-climbing and anti-digging capabilities.
The models were erected after Trump’s 25 January executive order that instructed the Department of Homeland Security to build a wall along the nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
Trump, who argues that the wall will help stop illegal immigration, criminal gangs and drug trafficking, repeated the latter assertion in a speech on Thursday in which he declared the opioid crisis a “public health emergency”.
“An astonishing 90% of the heroin in America comes from south of the border where we will be building a wall which will greatly help in this problem,” said Trump, who has yet to secure funding for his project.
According to some estimates, the wall could cost as much as $20 billion and Congress has so far been reluctant to dedicate funding for the barrier.
Mexico has also balked at Trump’s demands that it pay for the wall.
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Hmmm, wall seven is nice
@Bob McTanned: would be handier to climb over tho
Surely that’s the back of it. The sheer side is facing south. But Cemex would love if they chose that option, the amount of concrete would be astronomical
@Osine: I don’t know Rogelio Zambrano the president of Cemex said he will not be bidding.
@Bob McTanned:
I can pish higher than any of walls!
@Kieran Stafford: true, more ornamental than anything
@Bob McTanned: architectural masterpieces in their own right. I can see that some eminent architect has spent a lot of time working on them. I suppose the minefields and machine gun towers are a separate contract
@Kieran Stafford: also hard to breakthrough with the extra thickness at the bottom..
@Bob McTanned: Could they not make one from Re-cycled plastic? How deep will it go?
@Bob McTanned: can’t bate a daycent wall
Should have popular poll….Americans vote for favourite wall on their cell phones……With premium rates would pay for a few miles…..
@John003: could call it “America’s Got Wall” or. “Wall Idol”
@White Rabbit: Or “Wall Factor”
@Sinead Hanley: I’m a Mexican get me out of here!
@White Rabbit: or Wall Street
@John003: the Mexicans can produce Pimp My Wall
I like the way three and five have a modern design, while wall eight has an old school nod to the berlin wall.
@Paddy Norton: When are they posting the “New Mexican Ladder” designs?
I think it’s am excellent idea…
@Taylor Birkenhead: Yeah walls always solve problems. Look at the great Wall of China that looks good, all of these walls look crappy and where is the solar panels parts of the them. Has the war on drugs ever worked? Oh and where is the immigrants crisis now? Oh they rake it up every time there is an election. Dere tok r jabs!!!!
@Taylor Birkenhead: people in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones, just saying…..
@Taylor Birkenhead: I hope you never have a bad bit of luck, for that remark and buy a mirror sometime.
@Taylor Birkenhead: Personal insults that’s nice, can’t have a reasonable debate, yes the great Wall of China maintains it’s name because of the architecture that went into it. The US wall attempts just looks blasé. So how is the immigrant crisis going in the US? Ever think of moving there or do you want to get a green card first?
@Simon O Flaherty: don’t mind taylor, he/she has a profile pic of a character from the film American history X. the character is a nutcase neo nazi. sort of explains a lot
@Taylor Birkenhead: wow you’ve a lot of hate and pain inside. Probably why you’re so gleeful about hurting people. Get out from behind your keyboard and get an actual life. I feel sorry for you.
Tis a fine wall, but sure tis no pool English
@The Descolada: D’oh-eth!
@The Descolada: Is it a pool yet Lisa?
Bit of a waste of money considering most illegal Mexicans just fly into the country and stay after their visa expires.
@fiachra29: Shush would ya… that’s a secret…
@Ryan: Ah all jokes aside, the big secret is which buddy of Don’s going to get the contract to build it.
@fiachra29:
I heard Twas Healy rea to build it.
@fiachra29: that’s only rich Mexicans. Trump only wants to keep out the poor ones
@fiachra29: Kushner Construction.
@fiachra29: no, that’s just the Irish
Why doesn’t Trump just say that he has built the most fantastic fabulous wall between Mexico and The US and it’s made of glass and it is beautiful and the Mexicans were delighted to pay for it. His supporters & the republicans will believe him and that all that matters. Why go through this charade.
@Osine: Are you suggesting Trump supporters are gullible ?.
@Osine: The other approach of reducing the Social Welfare magnet hurts the genuine in-between job people.
S: not gullible… that suggest some naivety on their part…stupid is more accurate.
Tom: I have absolutely no idea of what your talking about.
You’re… (ironically my pet hate)
@Osine: US has already had to reduce welfare rates to stop half of South and Central America heading North. Europe is only now discussing this approach as a means to contain mass migration
@Osine: Unfortunately Americans supporters of trump are gullible
Got you now, my preposterous (faintly amusing) suggestion that Trump lies and tell his people he has already got the Mexicans to pay for a glass wall is met with a comment about the reduction of US social welfare…. you got me there bud, you win, no arguing against such entrenched trumpism. Logic, truth, humour, is like chaff in the wind.
@S.: No, just stupid.
WALL-E
In Israel that’s called a fence!
@Tom Phelan: That’s because over 90% of is fencing.
@Honeybadger197: and to be fair, the Mexicans haven’t sent any suicide bombers in yet.
Prototype walls… someones taking the pi55 here, surely.
@Eyepopper:
These walls will include complex IoT sensors and integration with centralised control systems. Sounds like something you’d want to test before building.
@Thought for Food: Oooh and lasers ? Gotta have lasers…
@Ryan: And sharks, you definitely need sharks with those lasers
@Thought for Food: yes but the physical structure of the wall hardly needs prototypes, i mean don’t we already know how to build a concrete wall? These prototypes aren’t drastically different from one another, they are all concrete walls ffs. Grandstanding is all this is, it’s as obvious as the rectangular mustasche under Trump’s nose. The only difference will be the cool add-ons like the laser beams, sharks, flamethrower turrets, drawbridges, snake pits, pike pits, bear traps, land mines, boiling oil cauldrons…. The cool stuff is what we be needing the prototypes of .
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: Sharks wearing lasers… cause ‘merica… Fu#k yeah…
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: and don’t feed the sharks too much, make them more aggressive! Bigly.
Fiona deFreyne seems to have an a opinion on everything.Not complaining. Just an observation.
@Liam Dempsey: wall five for me. I think they will become a mini Mount Everest . Everyone will want a go.
The Ancient Romans had an engineering solution to get over any wall or fortification, no matter how high. It will be easy to implement and effective. It would require a team of 25 to 30 persons and rather basic materials. The only countermeasure would be to post up enough wall guards to shoot into the Mexican side of the wall and kill any Mexicans attempting this basic engineering solution.
Walls are rather primitive technology from a 21st century security perspective.
@Fiona deFreyne:
Except these walls will have sensors on the approach to and over the wall. Any attempt to breech with ladders would be detected before it happened.
@Thought for Food: not ladders and no need to pivot or lean against the walls.
There is no such thing as an insurmountable wall unless you dedicate an army of snipers ready to kill anyone who tries to surmount the wall. That would require vast man power and ongoing expense. It would be so expensive as to be economically ruinous.
@Fiona deFreyne: expert in climbing walls now? Haha
@Fiona deFreyne: that reminds me of World War Z
@John Tierney: I am not going to post a link. It can be located in any Roman military history book.
I hope that the wall is built. It will be a monument to Trump’s hubris.
@Fiona deFreyne: imagine the opportunities for graffiti. On both sides too. Now that would be an attraction worth visiting.
@Fiona deFreyne: if you are referring to Masada then all you need to do is protect the builders – so snipers are not even enough – they made a movie of that with Peter O’Toole
@Fiona deFreyne: Donald Trump is a rather primitive human by 21st century standards….
Has he asked the Chinese lads? They built a lovely wall to keep out the drugs or was it dragons
@Lobert Rester: Not sure, I heard something about chasing dragons alright!
Wall 5 would allow you to just pass drugs through, or am I missing something?
@Martin Flood: and you could throw drugs over the others walls. It’s more the people he wants to keep out. The “bad hombres”.
@Martin Flood: or maybe a troupe of Mexican limbo dancers might succeed!!!!!!
It will prove very expensive for the mexicans…. oh, wait….
Not exactly prototypes of the great wall of China, are they?
Another vainglorious attempt by Trump.
@Fiona deFreyne: I Don’t think Trump is personally designing the wall to be fair.
@Dave Murray: I thought that Trump had commissioned the designs.
Are these just private operations trying to display their best prototype designs.
I like wall 7
Trump is a Wallie
Does it come in summer meadow?
7
Trump should invoke mandatory military draft for the unemployed in the US to join the Wall-building Division.
@alphanautica: They should build the wall out of the bodies of the corpses of the unemployed as well as building houses in Dublin from the corpses of the unemployed “make them earn it”.
I Hope El’Chapo keeps his word an blows it up.
Walls are not an obvious or sensible solution to a 3,201 km length of land border.
@Fiona deFreyne: great wall of china
@Christy Pop: The Great Wall of China failed to do it’s job. The most advanced civilisation in the world at the time was invaded and conquered by a nomadic tribe on horseback with bows and arrows….
Machine Gun turrets, it needs machine gun turrets.
@Diogenes: seems like a few of us a thinking along the lines of Metal Gear Solid! :)
@Luke Victory: I still mean to play that.
@Luke Victory: i think thats Trumps next play. A Metal Gear patroling the border.
There are far superior and more effective technological solutions but less symbolic in nature. These solutions are already partly in operation.
Trump’s stumps.
What a despicable human being Trump is
@Mel Fitzpatrick: just as despicable as terrorist obambush and all the other murderers before him
Can we get number 5 for Donegal? Tyrone will pay!
Walls 4 and 6 area my faves. The Mexicans can see in and see what the’re missing.☺️
@Naoimh Ó Murchadha: of course, what a funny thing to say. I suppose that’s what went through the minds of the thousands of people that arrived in the US escaping the famine, then not allowed to get in, and see what they were missing through the gates at the ports of arrival
I think walls three and five are fences with walls on top. Wall two seems to have a container on top. number eight is being held up with telegraph poles What ever happened to good old blocks and mortar.
$20 billion to build. How much to maintain when the Mexican’s try blow parts of it up? Will it be bomb proof? All well and good having sensors, sensors can be disabled by snipers shooting them out. How much will they be to replace? Cameras are the same. Couple of snipers lined along the wall, shoot out all the cameras and sensors, patrols need to be placed along these parts costing more money. Keep moving along the wall until all of them are taken out. Drug cartels have stock piles of money. If the piles deplete because of the wall, it will be worth their while investing a pallet of American Dollars to take it out
@Keith Doyle: sounds like you’ve taken some of that Mexican product yourself
Surely the Mexicans should decide as they are paying for it :€)
The price of these eight contenders below.
They should have solar panels on them to make back some of the cost.
Solid concrete: Fisher Sand & Gravel Co., based in Arizona, delivered a 30ft tall solid concrete structure for examination. Cost: $365,000
Part -see through: KWR Construction, also based in Arizona, submitted a design made from unidentified material, featuring a see-through lower two-thirds and a thicker top third. Cost: $486,411
Steel mesh and spikes: The Texas Sterling Construction Co. lined the top of its grey concrete project with steel mesh and spikes. Cost: $470,000
Concrete and see-through: The Caddell Construction Co., based in Alabama, submitted a concrete prototype – nicknamed ‘the comb’ – with a solid top half and see-through bottom half. Cost: $458,103
Thick concrete base: A second construction by the Caddell Co. features a concrete wall with a thicker bottom half. Cost: $344,000
Steel ‘radiator style’: ELTA North America Inc. submitted a steel wall with a rounded top – resembling a radiator, according to some. Cost: $406,319
Metal: W.G. Yates & Sons, of Philadelphia, submitted both a concrete and non-concrete prototype. This metal version cost $458,103
Concrete: W.G. Yates & Sons, of Philadelphia, submitted both a concrete and non-concrete prototype. This concrete version cost $453,548
At the Turkey Syria boarder they have automatically activated machine gun turrets that warn you to go back and then shoot if you keep approaching. These combined with a deep trench would be a lot cheaper and would appeal to the gun nuts
There is already a border between the US & Mexico he’s simply securing it I don’t know what all the fuss is .
Wall 8 is a little high, Maybe 30 Mexicans high!
Ireland’s fittest family would be over that in jig time
Dear Donald , I need walls real real bad I can’t afford them Donald can you please pretty please send me a wee wall 2m do me but I wouldn’t say no to three I just want privacy . Ta ta
You’d have to have a cylindrical device that can rotate at the top of the wall. A grappling hook could be used on most of these.
Where is the design showing a wall made of interlocking solar panels, free energy to electrocute any wannabe climbers
Hmmm surely you could go under it, or where it meets the Sea, sail round it?
These walls reflect Trump’s mentality.
Mexicans will just dig tunnels.
I’m thinking of opening a shop that exclusively sells Mexican border walls.
Goin to call it wallmart.
Should make a fortune
Wall 3 and 7 are a bit like bullseye, ‘this is what you coulda won’
Some fine hurling walls there
We can name it “WALL ST”
Arlene will be interested, they all look crocodile proof,
If the Mexicans are paying for it, its only fair that they pick it.
We should build a wall around cork and get the Langers to pay for it.
Hmmm!!! Ok,we’ll take wall 8 please.
Eh,does that come with a 10 year guarantee?
My Waku ladder could get over all them walls
Surely there was performance criteria to be met? Deterrent over top, can’t pass drugs through. One of them looks like it will completely blow the ozone with the volume of concrete.
President Trump will need a lot of Mexicans for this 20 billion project. As McAlpine would have said “keep the mexicans in front of the cement mixer”
Won’t stop cheep drones flying over it to drop drugs off something the cartels already do. No wall alone will stop drugs.
Landmines would be alot greener to the planet and wouldn’t be an eyesore, what do you think Éamon Ryan
What’s the point ? Fly illegal contraband over with drones and the like ! What idiots and a waste of money ….. never mind the blot on the landscape !
@Gavin Minifie: Drones!?! Try a catapult… or my personal favourite a homemade pneumatic pumpkin mortar……
All nice but we’ll keep looking thanks.
Surely a good ladder is available in Mexico
I’m not informed enough to have a worthy opinion on this whole thing I guess, but I can’t help but think this is kinda going to be a history situation that our kids and our kids kids will be reading about in a history lesson years to come.
I heard they were going to leave gaps for migrating animals to pass – maybe that is the idea of the “wall over fence” ones?
One can go on and on about the jokes but remember that a large number of people across the ocean actually support many of that mans ideas – not sure if this scares me most.
Aww what? No motion detector gun turrets?
Does the wall go down far enough to block the tunnels?
Wouldn’t a bunch of robot laser guns be better at keeping the border safe
i would just bring a ladder and rope
All the Mexicans will be taking up Pole vaulting just to get over this obstacle.
It’s great that Trump will turn the Mexican Border into a ring of steel. That ends the drugs going into the States. The war on drugs has been won.
Oh!!!! Wait………
Mexico might have another idea. What is it Chapo?
U could easily get some skinny Mexicans through the gaps in 3 and 5.
It’s four from me!
Trumps wet dream – opportunity to pick one of a parading group of walls and then firing the rest to keep out Mexicans
i would have put solar panels on it…
Would have paid for itself after a few year’s….
All Trumps ideas would drive you up the wall
I said it before this guy is not fit for purpose.
Just get a pickaxe & shovel $20 & dig under it for access. Easy peasy . Instead of $20 billion to build up. Mathematical genius or what?
Wall 2 3 5 7 piss easy to climb just build a 4 m tall concrete slab
Amazing what money can be spent on
have your say