#Trump touts more than 200 miles of new border wall in Arizona visit

President Trump on Tuesday traveled to Arizona for a roundtable on border security and touted the completion of more than 200 miles of what he called an impenetrable “border wall system” to keep out illegal immigrants.

“We’re on pace to complete 450 miles by end of year, 500 miles almost immediately after,” he told border patrol, law enforcement and elected officials, including Gov. Doug Ducey, during the event in Yuma.

Trump called the more than 200 miles — which replaced existing fencing, much of it dilapidated — the “most powerful and most comprehensive wall anywhere in the world,” alluding to sensors and other technology, and asserting that one would need “an extraordinarily long ladder” to climb over.

“My administration has done more than anyone in history to secure our southern border,” he added.

He also slammed the Obama administration and Democrats claiming both favor “caravans” of immigrants and “open borders,” and said the wall, particularly in California, “prevented a coronavirus catastrophe on our southern border,” which he said would otherwise have been a “global epicenter” of virus transmission.

Trump was accompanied by Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, who called the wall system an “undeniable impediment to smugglers, traffickers and other criminals who have exploited our lack of effective border infrastructure to smuggle drugs, illicit goods and engage in human trafficking.”

Others in attendance included GOP Sen. Martha McSally, Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko and several federal and local law enforcement officials. Trump concluded his remarks by reviving a familiar phrase before the entourage left to view a portion of the newly installed wall.

“Two things that have never changed, a wall and a wheel. We’re going to always have wheels, and we’ll always have walls,” the president said.

Following his border wall visit on Tuesday, Trump will head to Phoenix to speak at a Students for Trump convention sponsored by the group Turing Point USA at Dream City Church.

— With AP