Facts About President Donald Trumps Wall

#1 He Said It Would Start On Day One

One of the key talking points from Trump's election campaign was the infamous wall he claimed would be built on the U.S - Mexico border to prevent illegal immigration. But will he ever build it or was it just a vote winning message? He released a video revealing the things he hopes to accomplish in his one hundred days and there was no mention of a wall, even though he promised it was the very first thing he would work on.

#2 A Logistical Nightmare

Building the wall is fraught with logistical, environmental, and monetary obstacles. Currently, there is around 650 miles of border fencing strewn across the border. In order to meet Trump's standards, the wall would need to be 20 feet high and 5 feet underground. But he promised to make the wall between 40 to 70 feet tall, depending on what day he comments on the size of his wall.

#3 Materials

By Donald Trump's standards, the wall has to be built with concrete. The current fences that have been built cost $7 billion over many years. For 1,000 miles of a concrete wall, it would take 5.2 million feet of precast segments which is 8 million cubic feet of concrete. That's more than three times the amount used to build the Hoover Dam. And for the Trump wall, that would need to be doubled because it would cover close to 2,000 miles.

#4 A Whole New Infrastructure

Also, 1.6 million tons of steel rebar would also be needed to reinforce the wall. Not only that, the land would need to be purchased by the government, people would need to be hired, housed and fed. Most likely brand new factories would be required to be built close to the border to manufacture the wall. In order to get to these far reaching places of the border, a whole new infrastructure would need to be constructed to get there.

#5 Location

The wall would be built on the Souther border between the United States and Mexico. It would cross four different states, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. This would require multiple intrastate regulatory issues. Some of this land is barren while other portions are environmentally protected or unsafe for building such a structure.

#6 Length

There has been a lot of debate over the length of the proposed wall and just how it will stretch the full 2000 miles. Trump has no backed away from this length and sais a full wall may not be required to cover the border.

#7 It Got Scaled Down Slightly

There are also issues of building over rivers and any other unstable ground which engineers may run into. However, no engineer so far has offered to even study such a concept because of the sheer nature of the stability and cost. Trump is now stating that just 1,400 miles of wall may be required, with fencing and drones, radar, and humans patrolling the other areas.

#8 Expense

The cost of such a wall has been studied by financial experts and the results are staggering. With a total cost of construction of such a wall, which actually will not cover the land that was promised, would cost Americans between 12 billion dollars and 17 billion dollars. That price is equal to NASA's yearly operating margin.

#9 Mexico Won't Pay For It

But Donald Trump told the voters that Mexico would pay for the wall. No, they will not. Mexico has also said time after time, they will not be responsible for paying for this type of project. For starters, they can't afford the price tag and have told Trump and the world they have no plans to even keep the wall, if built, maintained.

#10 Impact

The wall is supposed to keep a large number of illegal immigrants from crossing the border at the Southern locations. Jobs would be created, and a lot of them. But there would also be a force needed to enforce and maintain the wall one built and completed. The cost alone could hinder the entire project, giving that the national debt is now over $20 trillion dollars, even the Republican-controlled Congress may not be able to support such a costly venture.

#11 The Environment

The wall would also pose a large number of environmental problems. The border zone is a delicate ecosystem with many bird and animals migrating to the area. Experts say black jaguars would certainly face extinction, as would American black bears since they need to mate with Mexican black bears. Swampland and marine life would also suffer, raising issues with wildlife lobbyists. Not to mention to 60% of Americans who oppose the wall, according to Pew Research. From lush vegetation to arid desert, the border area is very diverse terrain. This does not even take in account that immigrants can still migrate, as 20% do now, through the Gulf Of Mexico via Louisiana.

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