US Engineers Begin Preparatory Work for Border Wall Construction, by Ron Nixon.

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. …

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. …

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.”