© Reuters / Earnie Grafton
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen speaks during a visit to President Trump's border wall in the El Centro Sector in Calexico, California.
After a series of political battles, the first completed section of President Donald Trump's border wall has been unveiled. But people are still arguing over whether it's a wall or a fence.
The two-and-a-half-mile-long, 30-foot-tall barrier was built over eight months and unveiled by US Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen at a ceremony in Calexico, California on Friday. Nielsen pleaded for further government funding to complete the mammoth project, saying that "walls work." She also refuted the oft-repeated claim that the barrier of steel bollards was actually just a fence.
Earlier this year, Trump unveiled eight border wall prototypes in California, some concrete and some metal structures like this one. "It's different than a fence in that it also has technology. It's a full wall system," she said. "It's a wall, this is what the president has asked us to do. It's part of a system."
The ceremony celebrated the replacement of shorter, older fencing that was installed in the 1990s. On Friday, a plaque was installed on the 'wall' to "commemorate the completion of the first section of President Trump's border wall," it read.
"Walls work, it's not my opinion," Nielsen said. "It's not a tagline. It's not a political statement. It's a fact."
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