Don’t build that wall – build THIS one! Homeland Security chief says project won’t stretch ‘from sea to shining sea’ as Dem senator says there’s no ‘blank check’ for 2,000-mile border wall
Sec. John Kelly said during a Senate hearing that he has ‘a lot of elbow room’ to recommend options other than a massive concrete wall
Trump promised just that – over and over – as he campaigned for president
In one campaign rally Trump told a young questioner that the barrier would be ‘made of hardened concrete, and it’s gonna be made of rebar and steel’
One Democratic senator warned that Congress wants to know a fixed plan before it allocates money to the project
She insisted that fencing makes more sense because Border Patrol agents can’t see through walls
By David Martosko, US Political Editor
DailyMail.com
5 April 2017
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly threw cold water on one of President Donald Trump’s marquee campaign pledges Wednesday, telling a Senate committee that it’s ‘unlikely’ a physical wall will be built along the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a public hearing Kelly told Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, that few details about the wall have been set in stone.
‘It’s unlikely that we will build a wall, or physical barrier, from sea to shining sea,’ he said, describing the nearly 2,000-mile border that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.
‘I have a lot of elbow room’ to decide how to secure the border, Kelly declared, saying Trump will ultimately accept his recommendation even if it’s a combination of walls, fences and high-tech solutions.
‘I’m looking at every variation on the theme,’ he said, ‘and I have no doubt when I go back to him and say, “You know, boss, a wall makes sense here, fencing – high tech fencing – makes sense over here, technology makes sense over here,” I have no doubt that he will go tell me to do it.’
The president promised hundreds of times during his campaign that his administration would build an impenetrable physical wall, but sometimes cautioned that some parts of the border were already protected by geological features.
‘Of the 2,000 [miles], we don’t need 2,000. We need 1,000 because we have natural barriers,’ Trump told MSNBC in February 2016.
Still, he made no allowances for fencing as he spoke in public about walls of heights that ranged from 35 to 50 feet in height.
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