Archinect - News

The DOJ says it will sue Texas over floating Rio Grande migrant barriers

2023-07-22T09:05:00-04:00

The Justice Department has put Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on notice that it intends to file suit over a floating barrier wall he erected in the Rio Grande River to keep migrants from crossing the border illegally. The letter, a copy of which was obtained by USA TODAY, gives Texas officials until Monday to commit to removing the barrier. If there is no response, the Justice Department will pursue legal action, the letter warns.

The buoys, which are manufactured off-site by a U.S./Dubai-based company called Cochrane USA, were already challenged by a local kayaking rental business owner who claimed their presence was damaging to the river’s ecosystem. The DOJ’s letter was met with a tweet from Abbott wherein he claimed "sovereign authority” over the international border. The news comes in the wake of another DOJ investigation involving potentially life-threatening commands given to a Texas DPS trooper regarding the handling of migrants, an allegation which Abbott apparently denies.

Texas begins installation of defensive buoys along the Rio Grande

2023-07-13T11:29:00-04:00

Texas began rolling out what is set to become a new floating barrier on the Rio Grande on Friday in the latest escalation of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion-dollar effort to secure the U.S. border with Mexico, which already has included bussing migrants to liberal states and authorizing the National Guard to make arrests. Setting up the barriers could take up to two weeks, according to Lt. Chris Olivarez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The barriers are being deployed along a strategic 1,000-foot-long point in the Rio Grande. CNN recently reported on one local business owner’s attempt to halt their placement via a lawsuit. Abbott, for his part, promised "mile after mile" more.

The issue goes beyond affecting what an ACLU attorney called the “moral conscience of Texas.” As the suit’s plaintiff told reporters, “I know it’s a detriment to the river flow, to the ecology of the river, to the fauna and flora. Every aspect of nature is being affected when you put something that doesn’t belong in the river.”

(The buoys are designed by Cochrane USA, according to multiple sources.)

Texas continues with plans to use shipping containers as 'makeshift' border wall

2023-01-10T11:57:00-05:00

Gov. Greg Abbott announced in November that the state was moving large shipping containers to the banks of the Rio Grande near downtown El Paso — between official ports of entry — to keep out migrants [...] The Texas containers are on land managed by the International Boundary and Water Commission, the Journal noted. The binational agency enforces treaties between the nations, and evaluates various projects that could affect the Rio Grande.

Abbott’s double-down comes after an announcement from Arizona’s new Governor, Katie Hobbs, that they will dismantle their $80 million wall of shipping containers that were installed in the Colorado National Forest last year.

The plan also encroaches on lands managed by the International Boundary and Water Commission without a permit. This could potentially trigger a change in the flow of water in the Rio Grande floodplain that could cause catastrophic loss of life and other environmental damage, according to the agency.

Texas is adding shipping containers to the US-Mexico border in El Paso.

This is in addition to the razor wire and National Guard.

Together, the strategies are causing illegal immigration at that location to plummet.https://t.co/YPTJlkca5m
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) December 29, 2022

El Paso's homeless shelter system is currently overwhelmed by the influx, despite the makeshift barriers. The state's spokesperson for emergency management nevertheless told reporters ...

Department of Homeland Security is undertaking repairs to portions of border wall

2021-12-27T17:18:00-05:00

The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that it would begin performing maintenance and emergency repairs on areas of the unfinished border wall with Mexico that runs along Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California.

Following President Biden’s executive order in January to halt the construction of the border wall, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the process of terminating the construction contracts for the projects. As part of this process, unfinished projects were handed over to the Department of Homeland Security to “undertake activities necessary to address urgent life, safety, environmental, or other remediation required to protect border communities.”

Work includes drainage remediation, erosion control, gap closures, and the disposal of residual materials, to name a few.

As immigration stories grip newsfeeds, 'The Wall/El Muro' at the National Building Museum examines architecture's role in the U.S.-Mexico border wall

2021-10-13T19:16:00-04:00

As part of the institution’s renewed focus on pressing social issues through its selection of public programming, the National Building Museum has announced a major new exhibition looking into the part design professionals can play in a topic not too far removed from America’s visual imagination.

Opening on Saturday, November 6th, The Wall/El Muro: What is a Border Wall? is a coeval exhibition that quite literally reflects on the crossover between the built environment and mass immigration.

One of the original boundary markers put up by a joint coalition of U.S. and Mexican officials in the 1880's. The marker currently resides in Chamizal National Park El Paso, Texas near the border wall. Photo: Sarah Leavitt.

Billed as a “timely examination of the role of design, architecture, planning, and engineering in today’s border issues and challenges,” users enter a soundscape environment set along the border in Otay Mesa, California. A section of fence taken from Calexico offers visitors a...

Biden administration returning $2.2 billion previously redirected for border wall construction

2021-06-22T18:05:00-04:00

The federal government has announced plans to return $2.2 billion allocated to fund border wall construction. This comes following President Joe Biden’s proclamation, made on his first day in office, to halt the redirection of money for the wall.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have developed plans in accordance with the Biden administration’s initiative. As listed in a press release from The White House, they include: cancelling wall projects with diverted military construction funds, returning those funds to their original appropriated purposes, and addressing safety and environmental issues resulting from border wall construction.

In addition, the administration is calling on Congress to cancel funds provided to the DHS for border barrier projects in order to allow the resources to be used for more modern and effective border management measures. According to the release, the DHS is legally required to use the funds consistent with ...

Texas lawmaker pitches bill to continue border wall construction

2021-03-09T20:00:00-05:00

In an attempt to pick up border wall construction where former President Donald Trump left off, a state lawmaker in Texas has introduced legislation that would see the construction of a border wall along the Texas-Mexico border. HB 2862 would create a special "border security enhancement fund" to pay for the projects [...]

The legislation, introduced by Republican Texas House Rep. Bryan Slaton, also proposes to name the fortification system the "President Donald J. Trump Wall."

Construction Dive points out that it was "only a matter of hours after Biden was sworn in that he rescinded Trump's national emergency declaration, which the former president used to redirect Pentagon funds to border wall construction, and gave contractors seven days to stop all border wall construction [...]."

Privately funded border wall to be inspected per judge orders

2020-07-16T13:20:00-04:00

The builder of a privately funded U.S.-Mexico border wall segment in Texas has agreed to an inspection of the 3.5-mile structure, which experts say is showing signs of erosion...Built by North Dakota-based contractor Fisher Industries and finished just months ago, the $42 million wall is in danger of falling into the adjacent Rio Grande River

According to Construction Dive, U.S. District Judge Randy Crane is overseeing a lawsuit brought by the federal government and the neighboring National Butterfly Center over the construction of the fence and its potential threat to the Rio Grande. Moreover, it was also reported that the structure violates a treaty with Mexico because it deflects too much water during floods, the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) alleges in the suit.

Army Corps awards $569 million border wall contract

2020-04-27T12:48:00-04:00

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded BFBC LLC, a subsidiary of Bozeman, Montana-based Barnard Construction, a $569 million contract modification for the construction of approximately 17.2 miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border in California. This adds to the $141.7 million contract awarded to the company in May for work in California and Arizona.

According to Construction Dive, the Army Corps said that the projects are being delivered in response to the Department of Homeland Security's request that the Defense Department assist in securing the southern border to block drug smuggling through the construction of roads, fences and lighting systems. The additional border wall work by BDBC is due to be completed by June 30, 2021.

Border wall planning unfazed by coronavirus threat

2020-03-30T13:51:00-04:00

The United States Army Corps of Engineers this week issued Southwest Valley Constructors a contract modification worth $524 million for design-build services on a barrier wall replacement project in Tucson, Arizona, at the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The change brings Southwest's contract amount for the project to almost $1.2 billion when combined with the May 2019 initial contract's award of $646 million for the same project.

While construction of all non-essential projects in several US states has been ordered to stop to contain the spread of COVID-19, planning of fortification elements along the US-Mexican border near Tucson, Arizona is going ahead with full steam, as Construction Dive reports.

Section of US-Mexico border wall topples over in high winds

2020-01-30T10:00:00-05:00

A newly erected section of the border wall on the US-Mexico border toppled over in high winds this week. The section fell over onto the Mexicali, Mexico side of the border just across from Calexico, California. Luckily, no one was injured due to the failure.

According to local agent Carlos Pitones of the United States Department of Customs and Border Patrol, the wall had been recently installed in fresh concrete footings that had yet to cure, CNN reports. The area has been battered by strong winds this week, with gusts reaching strengths of up to 37 miles-per-hour, according to the National Weather Service.

The scene could be a sign of things to come, should presidential contender Bernie Sanders be elected. At an event in Iowa last week, Sanders, who has been a vocal critic of the wall project and has vowed to disband the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, hinted that he would be open to possibly tearing down the wall, VICE News reports, though only if it was not p...

Trump may reallocate additional $7.2 billion of military funds for border wall

2020-01-21T12:49:00-05:00

President Trump is preparing to divert an additional $7.2 billion in Pentagon funding for border wall construction this year, five times what Congress authorized him to spend on the project in the 2020 budget.

According to The Washington Post, the funding would give the government enough money to complete about 885 miles of new fencing by spring 2022, far more than the 509 miles the administration has slated for the U.S. border with Mexico. So far the Trump administration has completed 101 miles of new barriers, which is less than the promised 450 miles due for the end of the year, reports The Washington Post.

New border wall commences in South Texas despite landowner resistance

2019-10-25T12:36:00-04:00

...construction workers on Wednesday began building the first new border wall in South Texas just south of the town of Donna...it will connect to an existing border wall that was built in 2008 under the 2006 Secure Fence Act. On Sept. 29, CBP in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a contract to Gibraltar-Caddell Joint Venture for up to $296 million to build 22 miles of noncontiguous border wall starting east of Santa Ana.

The new construction has prompted concern from locals in the area, as the work has begun on private land.

According to Border Report, "many other landowners in the region have so far refused CBP access to survey their lands, and have not sold their properties for wall construction."

Border wall construction begins in Arizona

2019-09-16T13:31:00-04:00

The president and his administration said last week that they plan on building between 450 and 500 miles of fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile border by the end of 2020, an ambitious undertaking funded by billions of defense dollars that had been earmarked for things like military base schools, target ranges and maintenance facilities.

The construction has commenced in Yuma, Arizona, where the 30-foot-tall fencing will replace existing shorter barriers. "The Trump administration says the wall—along with more surveillance technology, agents and lighting—is key to keeping out people who cross illegally," reports The Columbian. The administration has come under fire in recent weeks for redirecting funding previously allocated for other military projects toward the construction of the wall.

Architects continue to speak out against border security construction projects

2019-08-15T18:00:00-04:00

The Architecture Lobby, a national group that organizes and advocates on issues related to the profession, published a call for design professionals to sign a public pledge condemning “all policies that use the built environment as an instrument of torture and oppression” and refusing to work on any project—be it an ICE office, a detention facility, or a wall—related to the Trump administration’s policies on immigration.

After the devastating and inhumane conditions detained individuals at the border have experienced in recent few years, groups of architects and organizers are increasingly speaking up against design projects relating to border control. As Fast Company's Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan points out, "someone designed each of these spaces, of course."

Since May, over 52,000 people have been detained at these border control sites, and close to 1,000 children have been separated from their families, according to the article. Ethical practices between architects and large firms vary, unfortunately. Border security has grown to be a highly lucrative market. However, several members of the design community are taking a stand to boycott any projects involved with the Trump administration's plans for detainment centers.

In July, The American Institute for Architects (AIA) issued a statement discussing the buildings at the border. Since their statement was published, many members of the architectur...

Architects install transnational pink seesaws at U.S.-Mexico border wall

2019-07-31T14:25:00-04:00

It may seem like an ordinary scene: Children and adults playing on pink seesaws, carelessly laughing and chatting with each other But this is a playground unlike any other. These custom-built seesaws have been placed on both sides of a slatted steel border fence that separates the United States and Mexico.

The binational Teetertotter Wall intervention, connecting Sunland Park, New Mexico with Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is the brainchild of Ronald Rael, a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia San Fratello, an associate professor of design at San José State University.

View this post on Instagram One of the most incredible experiences of my and @vasfsf’s career bringing to life the conceptual drawings of the Teetertotter Wall from 2009 in an event filled with joy, excitement, and togetherness at the borderwall. The wall became a literal fulcrum for U.S. - Mexico relations and children and adults were connected in meaningful ways on both sides with the recognition that the actions that take place on one side have a direct consequence on the other side. Amazing thanks to everyone who made this event possible like Omar Rios @colectivo.chopeke for collaborating with us, the guys at Taller Herrería in #CiudadJuarez for their fine cra...

Rhetoric aside, border wall length remains unchanged

2019-07-23T14:02:00-04:00

The Trump administration has not installed a single mile of new wall in a previously fenceless part of the U.S.-Mexico border in the 30 months since President Trump assumed office, despite his campaign promise to construct a “big beautiful wall.”

According to The Washington Examiner, while the Trump administration has replaced over 51-miles of existing border wall fencing, the administration has not actually added any new lengths of wall along the US-Mexico border.

In President Donald Trump's two years in office, the administration, according to a report from the department of Customs and Border Patrol, has installed an average 1.7-miles of barrier per month, none of it in areas that did not previously have a barrier already installed, The Washington Examiner reports.

One reason? Environmental approvals and reviews are more stringent along areas that have yet to receive wall segments.

US launches border wall beautification effort

2019-06-06T12:59:00-04:00

Some barriers along the southwestern border, including in Nogales, have been painted white, a color which border officials say makes it easier for them to detect migrants compared to the typical brown color.

Members of the United States military will be dispatched to border regions in California over the next month in order to apply new coats of paint to the existing US-Mexico border fence.

The effort, according to an email sent to lawmakers by the Department of Homeland Security, is being undertaken to improve the "aesthetic appearance" of the wall.

The email, CBS News reports, reads in part: "While the primary purpose is to improve the aesthetic appearance of the wall, there may also be an operational benefit based on our experience with painted barrier in Nogales, Arizona."

The United States Department of Customs and Border Protection will finance the $150,000 effort while soldiers from the Department of Defense will do the actual painting.

Can border walls negatively affect our mental health?

2019-04-02T19:36:00-04:00

All told, there are at least seventy border walls in the world today. Their construction has inspired an entire field of research dedicated to studying their effects. Psychologists, economists, geographers, and other specialists regularly publish reports in outlets such as the Journal of Borderland Studies, and much of their research suggests that border walls may be affecting the people who live near them in unforeseen ways.

As the discussions about producing and enforcing geopolitical borders become more commonplace in global news, the studies of the psychological effects of those of previous eras have become painfully relevant.

Berlin Wall, photographer unknown

Dietfried Müller, a German psychiatrist, had noticed increased cases of paranoia and delusion in those who lived near the Berlin Wall; so many cases, in fact, that he came up with a term for a syndrome in his 1973 book: Mauerkrankheit, or wall disease.

According to Jessica Wapner of the New Yorker, the construction of border walls "has inspired an entire field of research dedicated to studying their effects. Psychologists, economists, geographers, and other specialists regularly publish reports in outlets such as the Journal of Borderland Studies, and much of their research suggests that border walls may be affecting the people who live near them in unforeseen ways."

How much talks of a US/Mexico border wall, among the others discussed around t...

Trump border wall prototypes demolished

2019-03-01T19:47:00-05:00

And the prototypes came tumbling down. [...] They have been used most dramatically as a backdrop for a presidential visit last March and for protest art. [...] On Wednesday, slabs from seven out of the eight prototypes fell in clouds of dust in under two hours, no match for a jackhammer. At the point of destruction, an owl fled from a steel tube atop one section.

And just as quickly as they came, they're gone again: seven of the eight prototypes for a lofty 1,954-mile border wall project to Mexico were bulldozed and turned into piles of expensive rubble on Wednesday morning.

The Guardian writes that "according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, the eight model sections were riddled with design and construction flaws. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) tested the slabs and found they could be breached."

In light of such grave design flaws, Mexico will likely not want to pay for the wall anymore.

Chicago architects launch parody campaign to build a golden border wall for Trump

2019-01-15T15:59:00-05:00

The architects behind the Flying Pigs on Parade project—which planned to install four golden pig-shaped balloons in front of the infamous Trump Tower Chicago sign—are back with another anti-Trump parody, this time mocking the President's proposed border wall.

New World Projects, the Chicago-based firm known for creating visual commentary on the ridiculous nature of our current political environment, has released renderings and an accompanying GoFundMe campaign for a prototype wall that would surround the Mar-a-Lago resort and golf club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Mocking Trump's penchant for ambitiously gaudy design, the proposal promises a 30-foot tall, gold finished picket fence on one side, that would be electrified on the other by six new coal plants built along the border. The project's website cynically describes, "the bad guys on the other side can look through and imagine the riches and moral integrity of being American."

Image courtesy of New World Projects.

Throughout the hyp...

Revisiting the Berlin Wall era, Germany's 2018 Venice Biennale Pavilion “Unbuilding Walls” examines the lasting effects of division

2018-05-29T14:40:00-04:00

During a time of heated debates on national borders, “Unbuilding Walls” — the German Pavilion now open at the 2018 Venice Biennale — revisits the era of the Berlin Wall, 28 years after it was dismantled. “Since February 5, 2018, the Wall that divided Germany for 28 years has been gone for longer than it was there. This symmetrical moment in history presents an opportunity to reflect on developments in the former border space since the fall of the Wall,” pavilion curators GRAFT and Marianne Birthler write in their introduction of the exhibition.

German Pavilion, Biennale Architettura 2018. Photo © Jan Bitter.

Designed as if it were an impenetrable wall, the exhibition showcases a variety of architectural projects along the site of the former Berlin Wall, presenting a broad analysis of the lasting effects of division, protectionism, nationalism, and “the pro...

Trump's design feedback on border wall prototypes: "We have to have a see-through wall"

2018-03-13T18:40:00-04:00

President Donald Trump took a firsthand look today at the eight massive border wall prototypes that he had commissioned in San Diego for the “big, beautiful wall” he wants to build along the Southwest border, favoring a mixture of see-through capability topped with rounded concrete to make it impassable by climbers.

It's been a busy Tuesday morning for Donald Trump today: after firing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via a 5:44 AM Tweet, he traveled to San Diego to personally inspect the 8 border wall prototypes that had been erected last fall mere yards away from the actual U.S. border with Mexico.

One of the four "other materials" prototypes. Image: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Upon visiting the 30-foot-tall structures, Trump's initial design feedback seemed to strongly favor the four non-concrete "other materials" prototypes over the solid, opaque versions: "You have to have see-through," he said. "You have to know what's on the other side of the wall." Trump gave more specifics, adding: "You could be two feet from a criminal cartel, and you don't even know they’re there."

Another "other materials" prototype. Image: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

In an unexpected, almost admiring tone, Donald Trump praised the athletic abilities of immigrants trying to enter the United States, sayi...

AIA components in border states with Mexico mobilize opposition to the Border Wall

2018-03-01T09:32:00-05:00

The proposed $25 billion wall along the US/Mexico border raises questions that have proven divisive to society. [...] In 2017 and 2018, AIA state components and chapters in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas wrote resolutions and letters with the support of their boards of directors opposing a border wall and questioning its cost-benefit relative to infrastructure projects all over the country that they deem higher-priority.

AIA state components and chapters in each of the four states bordering Mexico—Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas—are organizing their opposition to Trump's border wall proposal and have passed formal resolutions.

"Robert Miller, AIA, 2018 president of AIA Arizona, led the charge in drafting a template articulating his component’s concerns, which he shared with AIA chapters in Arizona and, ultimately, components in Texas, California, and New Mexico," writes Katherine Flynn for the AIA. "Keeping the AIA Code of Ethics at the forefront, Miller says, helped him conceptualize the statement as something that members could support outside the context of their own partisan views."

Below are the AIA State Components’ statements regarding the proposed border wall:

AIA New Mexico

Texas Society of Architects

AIA California Council

AIA Arizona

Here are four AIA Local Chapters’ statements regarding the proposed border wall:

Austin in favor of boycotting companies involved in Trump's border wall

2018-02-05T12:35:00-05:00

In a 10-1 vote, the Austin City Council took the first step toward a boycott of any company that designs, builds or finances President Donald Trump’s $25 billion proposed border wall between Texas and Mexico. [...] Four companies already have been tapped to design and build wall prototypes, including Texas-based Sterling Construction Company, Inc.

The Texas state capital is just the latest of several local and state governments having either passed or proposed legislation that would ban companies involved in designing, building, or financing Donald Trump's proposed border wall with Mexico from being considered for other public contracts.

Bordering on Art.

2018-01-08T12:45:00-05:00

The notion that the prototypes could qualify as conceptual art might seem somewhat far-fetched. They were designed to United States Customs and Border Protection specifications, built to withstand a 30-minute assault from sledgehammers to acetylene torches, and to be difficult to scale or tunnel beneath. Aesthetic considerations are largely secondary to brute strength, but, when viewed up close, the walls collectively have the undeniable majesty of minimalist sculpture.

Cadillac Ranch, Prada Marfa, The Gates from the Met and The Border Wall. As excessive, fantastical, dismal and maddening as that list may sound, it may be closer to reality than we would think. For artist, Christoph Büchel, the possibility that the expected role of the Border Wall proto-types and their contentious implications should be classified as art is a interesting turn of events. The artist’s hope is to have the prototypes declared a national monument under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which protects naturally, culturally, or scientifically significant sites and for better or worse, we could agree that their cultural signification of the current state of America is undeniable. What do you think? Are they worth saving and what should their story be?

"Accidental minimalism": An architecture critic's take on the Trump border wall

2018-01-03T15:48:00-05:00

The slabs in front of me seemed at once the most and least architectural objects I’d ever seen. They were banal and startling, full and empty of meaning. Here were the techniques of Land Art, medieval construction, marketing and promotion, architectural exhibition and the new nativism rolled uncomfortably if somehow inevitably into one.

LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne takes a trip down to the U.S.-Mexican border in San Diego to attempt the challenge of critiquing Trump's border wall prototypes, "alternating bands of substance and absence, aspiration and impossibility".

Image: U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Architecture as Propaganda? What do we do now?

2017-12-12T11:40:00-05:00

This isn’t a new phenomenon for 2017–see Tiananmen Square, North Korea’s totalitarian buildings, Nazi architect Albert Speer. But this year we were reminded of architecture’s enduring power to be used as political propaganda thanks to Trump’s proposed border wall.

Architecture has played a fundamental role in the propagandized rhetoric of the Trump Administration. The aim of any kind of propaganda is to promote an idea or an ideology, and Trump and his administration have used architecture to promote their own program and ideology with an unquestionable emphasis on nationalism.

How are we to look forward and discuss this appropriation of a discipline, history and study as a tool for biased and demeaning indoctrination and publicity?

Facing backlash, companies building Trump's wall prototype seek protections

2017-11-06T20:02:00-05:00

The prototypes for Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico have been completed, and the six participating companies, whose names have been publicly released, are beginning to face some serious pushback.

Since the bidding process began, companies vying for the construction contract have received nonstop calls and criticism, been the site of protests, have received countless death threats, and according to one company, have even had their tractors stolen. Accused of betraying their own community, Hispanic-owned construction firms participating in the bidding process have faced the most backlash.

Security work along the border has always been contentious and companies that have worked on the border fence as well as related roads and lighting have always experienced various levels of harassment. However, things are more charged nowadays.

Beyond public criticism, companies competing to bid Trump's wall are facing legislative opposition on both the local and state level. Berkeley...

Trump border wall prototypes completed, prepare for sledgehammer testing

2017-10-30T14:23:00-04:00

[...] prototypes for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico have been completed and will be subjected to punishment to test their mettle — by workers wielding sledgehammers, torches, pickaxes and battery-operated tools. The testing lasting up to two months could lead to officials concluding that elements of several designs should be merged to create effective walls [...]. That raises the possibility of no winner or winners.

The six companies that were awarded contracts to build prototypes of Trump's border wall with Mexico earlier this year have completed their full-scale models on a site near San Diego and will see their creations undergo rigorous testing for nonclimbability, nonunderdiggability, and resistance to tools like sledgehammers and pickaxes (no word on battering rams or poisoned arrows).

While funding for the lofty idea of equipping all 1,954 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border with 30-foot-tall fortifications is still up in the air, the contractors erecting the selected prototypes were awarded between $300,000 and $500,000 for each model.

Here are a few of the prototype designs — some cast in concrete and some built of other materials to allow border patrol agents to peek through the wall into Mexico and prevent passersby on the northern side from being hit on the head by large sacks of drugs that reportedly keep flying over the wall.

All images via U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

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