Trump has seemingly abandoned the idea of building a concrete border wall and has settled on a steel barrier, but would a steel barrier actually be any more effective at deterring illegal border crossings, or would it be worse?
If tests conducted by the Trump regime tell us anything, it's that a steel barrier would be giant waste of time, money, and resources.
The Department of Homeland Security built a series of prototypes for Trump's wall including a steel barrier and all of them were easily breached, but the steel barrier may have been the most vulnerable.
From NBC News:
President Donald Trump has repeatedly advocated for a steel slat design for his border wall, which he described as "absolutely critical to border security" in his Oval Office address to the nation Tuesday. But Department of Homeland Security testing of a steel slat prototype proved it could be cut through with a saw, according to a report by DHS.
A photo exclusively obtained by NBC News shows the results of the test after military and Border Patrol personnel were instructed to attempt to destroy the barriers with common tools. [...]
[Testing] by DHS in late 2017 showed all eight prototypes, including the steel slats, were vulnerable to breaching, according to an internal February 2018 U.S. Customs and Border Protection report.
According to NBC News, Border Patrol agents were able to cut through Trump's steel barrier with a common household saw.
Trump responded to this report when he spoke outside the White House this morning by saying it was designed by a previous administration, but it was built in 2017 at Trump's direction along with all the other prototypes.
Looking at photos of the barrier now, the fact that you could easily cut through it is obviously a problem, but it's also not clear to me what this barrier is intended to stop. If it's suppose to stop the flow of drugs as Trump insists, why is there so much space between each bar?