Work starts on Donald Trump's controversial Mexico wall
These are the pictures that show work has begun on Donald Trump’s proposed wall on the border with Mexico.
Federal contractors have started to build prototypes of the President’s border wall with Mexico that has caused controversy ever since it was proposed.
Construction of eight models in a remote area of San Diego is about three months behind schedule after being held up by losing bidders whose protests were eventually denied.
A green tarpaulin hanging on a chain-link fence blocked views of the work, which is expected to last 30 days.
Roy Villarreal, acting chief of the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector, said another contractor will evaluate each model, which will be up to 30 feet high and 30 feet long.
He said: ”It may not result in a singular winner. It may be a combination of designs being implemented.”
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A Mexican man breached the fence and cut his hand before being arrested while preparations were made for a press conference about the wall.
The construction site is about two miles east of San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing at the end of steel-mesh fence that runs from the Pacific Ocean.
San Diego police and the county sheriff’s department have helped set up a “free speech zone” nearby for people to demonstrate, but Mr Villarreal said he knew of no organised plans to protest.
Trump said on Friday that the wall should be see-through, apparently at odds with the initial instructions for solid concrete.
Mr Villarreal said the concrete designs would be built with openings to allow agents to see across the border.
The Trump administration faces several federal lawsuits in San Diego that seek to block the prototypes and plans to replace existing barriers in California.
A complaint filed last week by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, largely mirrors two others by environmental advocacy groups that allege the administration overstepped its authority to speed up construction of the wall.
At issue is a 2005 law that gave the Homeland Security secretary broad powers to waive dozens of laws for border barriers, including the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act.
The lawsuits say that authority has expired.
