President Donald Trump has “discovered” that a physical wall across the entire U.S.-Mexico border is not necessarily possible, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told CNN Wednesday.
“What’s true is that after conferring with the experts who are involved in this process … the President has discovered that part of it will be, he knows, part of it will be the physical wall, part of it is better technology, part of it is also fencing,” Conway said. “There are rivers involved, I’m told. There are mountains involved, there’s terrain that isn’t conducive to building an actual physical structure in some places.”
While Trump has promised he would build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, he has been unclear on whether he was pushing for a physical wall or improving border security. He has said the U.S. needs the wall for security, safety and to stop the flow of drug trafficking into the United States. Throughout his campaign, he vowed to build a border wall and to make Mexico pay for it, which Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has consistently told Trump his country won’t do.
In recent days he’s suggested he would not sign any legislative fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — which Trump has vowed to end — without a plan for the border wall. DACA was created by former President Barack Obama through executive order, protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as minors from deportation.
