The realities facing the 'Trump Wall'.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Technology Tomorrow

The Trump Wall will never be completed as envisioned before the new president leaves office even if he were to win a second term. In fact, it's a safe bet to say a nearly 2,000 mile-long wall on the U.S. border with Mexico is a pipe dream.

This column in July looked at the staggering costs of building a wall when it was just a campaign promise. Now that President Donald Trump is in office, his allies on Capitol Hill are remaining steadfast on the notion of building it.

"We are going to build the wall. Period," House Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a Fox News editorial.

Putting aside the costs, it's time to look at the feasibility.

Before looking at a more realistic scenario for border security, it might be useful to take President Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill at their word and spell out exactly what they are talking about. This would be one of the largest public works programs seen since the 1950s when the nation began construction of the Eisenhower Interstate System.

From the Gulf of Mexico in Texas to the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. border with Mexico runs 1,989 miles. Currently, not a single mile of it has a "wall" as envisioned by Trump. The border is protected by various kinds of fences totaling about 700 miles. Some of them are impressive with tightly welded steel, two layers, and pilings going several feet underground. Some are vehicle fences, adequate for stopping a car, but easily stepped over by those on foot. Others are simple chain-link fences, with a roll of barbed wire on top--nothing that a pair of wire cutters can't defeat. Illegal migrants and drug smugglers jump over these fences all the time. If they don't think anyone is watching, they do it in broad daylight.

A fence is not a wall. And the implication during the campaign was that the current fencing is inadequate and something more formidable must be put in its place.

The Department of Homeland Security took 14 years to complete 700 miles of fences. If this plan to build a wall is taken literally, then 14 years of work, and billions of dollars in funding spent, will all be torn down and replaced with something more akin to what the East Germans built in Berlin. All that steel will end up in scrapyards and something made of concrete and rebar will be put in its place.

So the nation is going to build a wall. Out of what? What are the standards? How thick? How tall? Trump in an August 19 campaign speech said it could be from 30 to 60...