Quick ending

Amid clouds of dust, border wall prototypes are demolished

Associated Press

SAN DIEGO

A jackhammer reduced prototypes of President Donald Trump’s prized border wall into piles of rubble Wednesday, a quick ending to an experiment that turned into a spectacle at times.

The four concrete and four steel panels, spaced closely together steps from an existing barrier separating San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, instantly became powerful symbols associated with the president and one of his top priorities when they went up 16 months ago.

For Trump’s allies, the towering models were a show of his commitment to border security and making good on a core campaign promise. For detractors, they were monuments to wasted taxpayer dollars and a misguided display of aggression toward Mexico and immigrants seeking a new home in the United States.

Within about two hours, a hydraulic jackhammer on an excavator leveled seven prototypes. Concrete slabs crashed in small clouds of dust, steel panels were knocked over, and an owl flew out of a steel tube atop one panel just before it thundered down. The last prototype standing took a little more time to destroy.

U.S. officials say elements of the prototypes have been melded into current border fence designs and they were no longer needed.

Public access to the prototypes was blocked from the San Diego side, turning an impoverished Tijuana neighborhood into a popular spot for journalists, anti-wall demonstrators and curious observers. People climbed piles of trash against a short border fence that has since been replaced to get a clear view from Mexico.

Artists projected light shows on the walls from Mexico, with one message reading “Refugees Welcome Here” next to an image of the Statue of Liberty and another showing a silhouette jumping on a trampoline with a caption that read, “Use in Case of Wall.” Demonstrators craned their necks for a view when Trump toured the prototypes 11 months ago.

Removal of prototypes made way to extend a second-layer barrier of steel poles topped by a metal plate rising 30 feet from the ground, the same design being used elsewhere on the border. The new barrier vaguely resembles some of the steel prototypes but looks nothing like the solid concrete panels, which were widely panned because border agents couldn’t see what was happening on the other side.

The nearly $3 billion that Congress has provided for barriers during the first half of Trump’s term requires that money be spent on designs that were in place before May 2017, effectively prohibiting the prototypes from being used and denying Trump bragging rights to say he built his wall.