Customs and Border Protection told THE WEEKLY STANDARD this week that testing continued on eight prototypes for a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. The prototypes were commissioned earlier this year to give officials ideas for what types of structures they ultimately want to build. “Through the prototyping process, CBP may identify new designs or influences for new designs that will expand the current border barrier toolkit that CBP could use to construct a border wall system,” the agency says.
But are these designs an actual “border wall”? The optics of such a structure—“big, beautiful,” and all that, but supposedly imposing and deterring, too—were paramount to President Trump during the 2016 campaign. They’re less so now. Senators John Cornyn and Jeff Flake said Trump made clear to them on Tuesday that he has in mind what could be called a fence: not “a monolithic structure,” Cornyn said, but a barrier with a see-through component.
CBP issued two solicitations for prototypes in March: One was for a concrete wall, and the other was for a structure made from “other” materials. The requirements for submissions were nearly identical: a minimum of 18 feet in height with a government-preferred goal of 30, sufficient to prevent tunneling to a certain depth, impossible to climb unassisted, and so forth. But the non-concrete-structure solicitation added this request: “Incorporating a see-through component/capability to the wall that facilitates situational awareness but does not negate the requirements listed above is operationally advantageous.”
There are ways in which a wall with a “see-through component/capability” could resemble more of a fence. Three of the eight prototypes built in San Diego include tightly spaced bollards, or the vertical posts used to block motor vehicles from entering a particular area. (In this case, of course, the goal is to block a person.) In one design, half the wall comprises narrow bollards rising from the ground, topped by an opaque wall of roughly equal height. In another, the bollards stretch a bit higher and the wall component above is relatively shorter. In the third, the bollards are separated only by a sliver of space, and appear to make up the entirety of the structure, save a pipe at the very top.
There are “steel bollard” designs of fence already in use along the border, as mentioned by then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and in a temporary government spending bill last year. Previous legislation passed into law the last 12 years provided for such fence. But what has been erected along the southern border does not have near the height of what Trump has requested, and much of it is in a shoddy state.
The five other prototypes resemble opaque walls top-to-bottom; one is divided between concrete and metal, and one has what looks like barbed wire tilted at an angle above the concrete. Not one of these resembles a “fence.”
But this is where the technicality of “see-through” comes in. A CBP spokesman told me that “the designs will also have the benefit of technology for agents to be able to see across.” When asked if it was fair to say that a “see-through” component doesn’t have to be built into the physical structure, like bollards, but can instead be technological—cameras, for instance—he said it was a “correct” interpretation.
The New York Times reported on Monday that Trump would reduce or delay funding for customs agents in its upcoming border protection plan, undercutting the usefulness of such an idea. But there’s a bigger point overhanging the border barrier debate: The word “wall” can mean pretty much anything you want it to.
