President Trump made his first trip to California since his 2016 election to inspect prototype models for his promised Border Wall. Being the biggest Blue State, dominated by far-Left politicians and militant anti-Trump “Resistance” radicals, there were expectations of violent confrontations, but protests during his visit were peaceful.
One of President Donald Trump’s most controversial campaign promises was his pledge to “build a wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop the massive flow of illegal aliens. When Air Force One touched down at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station near San Diego on Tuesday, March 12, the president demonstrated that his vows in this regard were not mere campaign rhetoric or impractical theory. At a press conference near the border, where eight competing prototype models were on display, President Trump reiterated his determination to get the security wall built. Flanked by Border Patrol officers, and with the massive, 30-foot-tall concrete-and-steel structures as a backdrop, the president pointed to the existing border fence just yards away and told reporters, “That wall, they can get over very easily.” “These walls,” he said, indicating the towering prototypes behind him, “they can’t.”
“If you don’t have a wall system, we’re not going to have a country,” Trump said. “There’s a lot of problems in Mexico, they have the cartels. We’re fighting the cartels, we’re fighting them hard.”
President Trump indicated that, among the prototypes on display, his preference was for one of the four models that have see-through features on the bottom half of the wall, which will enable the Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agents to better do their jobs. “The problem is you have to have see-through. You have to know what’s on the other side of the wall,” Trump said. “You could be two feet away from a criminal cartel and you don’t even know they’re there.” San Diego’s Chief Border Patrol Agent Rodney Scott, a 25-year veteran on the border, supported that evaluation, noting that CPB had cut many portals in the solid sheet metal of the current fence, in order to achieve some level of transparency.
The president was asked by a reporter to respond to California Governor Jerry Brown’s charge that the money for building the wall would be better spent on other projects. “I think Governor Brown’s done a very poor job running California,” Trump replied. “They have the highest taxes in the United States. The place is totally out of control. You have sanctuary cities where you have criminals living in sanctuary cities, and then the mayor of Oakland goes out and notifies when ICE is going in to pick them up,” he said.
Gov. Brown responded on Twitter to the Trump barb. “Thanks for the shout-out, @realDonaldTrump. But bridges are still better than walls. And California remains the 6th largest economy in the world and the most prosperous state in America. #Facts,” Brown tweeted.
The Trump-Brown feud is running on several tracks now, with the federal Department of Justice suing California over its illegal and defiant immigration and sanctuary policies.
Brown and Trump have also collided over global warming, gun control, environmental regulations, and much more. Just prior to Trump’s visit to California, Brown had complained that Trump is “going to war” against the state. However, far from being the aggrieved victim in this “war,” Brown has been a very aggressive belligerent.
The New American recognized the enormous crisis that was brewing with illegal immigration and our broken borders decades ago. A series of reports on the border crisis by this reporter more than 30 years ago culminated in the 1988 video documentary, Out of Control: The Immigration Invasion, which showed thousands of illegal aliens pouring across the Otay Mesa (where President Trump’s press conference took place) and other critical areas all along our southern border. These were not only from Mexico and Latin America, we pointed out, but also from over 100 countries, including China, Syria, Russia, and all parts of the Middle East and Africa. In some of our documentary footage, we show sections of the then-existing flimsy border fence between San Diego and Tijuana that had huge holes ripped in it, allowing foot traffic, or even automobile and truck traffic, to stream through. We noted at the time that only an adequately manned, substantial wall would suffice to stem this tide and provide real border security. Now, 30 years later, it may finally be built.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, California proved to be one of the most challenging battlegrounds for Donald Trump, with many incidents of violent protesters and Antifa militants viciously attacking Trump supporters and disrupting his rallies. In fact, at the California Republican Convention that year, Trump was forced, due to a protest/blockade, to abandon his motorcade on the freeway and climb over a fence to get into the convention.
Although anti-Trump demonstrations were held throughout California to protest his recent visit there, according to available news reports, they were tame by comparison to the riotous 2016-2017 melees that rocked Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other protest sites. Following his border visit and a rousing welcome from Marines at the Miramar base, President Trump headed north to the Los Angeles area for a high-level fundraiser at the Beverly Hills mansion of billionaire Ed Glazer, whose family owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL franchise and Manchester United, the world’s highest-earning soccer team. Donors contributed between $35,000 to $250,000 each for dinner and interaction with President Trump. The 90 attendees reportedly donated around $5 million to Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.
Photo of President Trump in front of border wall prototype: AP Images
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