Trump promised a “big, beautiful wall” along the southern border–at times saying it would be made of concrete, other times steel, built 40 feet tall, with a possible moat of alligators below it, with a big, beautiful door–portraying it as a sign of the impenetrability of the United States by undocumented immigrants.
Well, that ain’t happening.
The Trump Administration has just awarded a lucrative contract to Southern California-based start-up Anduril Industries to build a series of solar-powered towers to monitor the southern border, a system the Customs & Border Patrol dubs “Autonomous Surveillance Towers.”
With a reported $200 million in start-up investment, Anduril was founded by former Oculus founder Palmer Luckie, who sold his company to Facebook, but was subsequently forced out after employees learned of his donations to the Trump campaign.
CBP’s five-year contract with Anduril calls for 200 unmanned, self-sustaining towers to be built along the border by 2022, each with the capability of identifying objects moving across the border and differentiating humans from animals or debris.
No word from the Trump Administration on what it intends to do with the now-surplus concrete or steel… or border alligators.