WASHINGTON — The United States Army Corps of Engineers has begun preliminary preparations for the construction of segments of a wall in several places along the border with Mexico, the Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday.
Engineers are drilling and taking soil samples to determine what type of barriers would be most effective in the different types of geography along the border, said David Lapan, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
The drilling and soil testing are taking place in El Paso; Santa Teresa, N.M.; Calexico, Calif.; San Diego; and the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. Mr. Lapan said the testing has been completed in El Paso and Calexico. The agency has identified the San Diego area and the Rio Grande Valley as priority regions for new border walls.
The drilling and testing come as Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the Border Patrol, continues to evaluate dozens of proposals that have been submitted by vendors for designs for a border wall.
President Trump mandated construction of the wall in an executive order in January. In March, the Department of Homeland Security put out a call for prototypes of a “physically imposing” and “aesthetically pleasing” border wall. The structure would also be designed to prevent climbing and tunneling.
The president’s plan to build a border wall was part of a contentious budget fight in Congress this year. The administration was seeking $3.6 billion in the 2017 and 2018 budgets for just over 100 miles of wall. But members of Congress — Democrats and Republicans — have so far declined to provide funding for the project and instead expanded funding to increase the use of technology such as sensors at the border.
On Tuesday, though, the House Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill that included $1.6 billion for a wall. The bill would fund 74 miles of fencing along the southwest border.
The Department of Homeland Security has moved $20 million from other programs to pay for the construction of several border wall prototypes. Construction of the prototypes for a border wall is set to begin this summer in the San Diego area.
Homeland Security officials said the prototypes would be added to the existing border walls in San Diego and would allow the agency to evaluate which barriers are most effective in giving Border Patrol agents time to respond to illegal drugs and human smuggling. Officials said they planned to build four to eight prototypes.
Mr. Trump initially spoke of building a “big, beautiful” wall along the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico. But last week, he scaled back that plan, saying the length of the wall could be as little as 700 miles.
“You don’t need 2,000 miles of wall because you have a lot of natural barriers,” Mr. Trump said in a conversation with reporters aboard Air Force One last week. “You have mountains. You have some rivers that are violent and vicious. You have some areas that are so far away that you don’t really have people crossing. So you don’t need that. But you’ll need anywhere from 700 to 900 miles.”
Mr. Trump also said the wall would be partially transparent and could have solar panels to help offset the cost. Mr. Trump has pledged that he would make Mexico pay for the wall, a notion flatly rejected by the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto.
Significant opposition to a wall has also developed in some communities along the border. In Texas, much of the land needed for a wall is private, and there is bipartisan opposition from most of the state’s congressional delegation.
