Trump Targets San Diego For Border Wall Prototype
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has identified an area two miles east of Otay Mesa as a high priority for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The San Diego prototype border wall will be built 100 feet from the border, according to Homeland Security documents on a Senate committee website, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Other places on the top priority list include Tucson, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley, which encompasses the cities of Weslaco, McAllen and Rio Grande City in the southern tip of Texas.
Congress has allocated $20M for wall prototypes, the creation of wall design standards, a levee wall and other barriers, and completion of an enforcement zone in San Diego. Trump has requested $3.6B in the 2017-2018 budget to construct more than 100 miles of wall, including replacing 28 miles of San Diego’s fencing with a wall.
Homeland Security would begin awarding wall contracts by June 14, with prototype construction to begin eight days later, with completion by July 22. About 460 companies have submitted proposals to build the wall, including 23 in San Diego County.
On Monday, Trump said he may delay asking Congress for money for the wall until September, moving toward compromise to avoid a government shutdown.
California may impose sanctions on contractors that bid on the wall. State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) has introduced Senate Bill 30, co-sponsored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego), that would prevent the state from doing business with any company or person that works on the border wall. That bill passed a committee vote on Tuesday. Gonzalez Fletcher also co-sponsored a bill called the Resist the Wall Act that would require California’s pension funds to divest from companies that work on the border wall.
