Yesterday U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that Trump's border wall will start construction in the San Diego border town of Otay Mesa.
The area has one of two border crossings in San Diego, and will be the site where 20 chosen bidders will put up their proposed walls.
Winners will be selected around June 1st.
The prototypes will be 30 feet long and 30 feet high, and will be built on a quarter-mile strip of federal land with in 120 feet of the border.
Building prototypes near the Otay Mesa crossing allows companies to test out their designs in a heavily trafficked area that still has room for flexibility, according to Eric Frost, director of San Diego State University’s graduate program in homeland security:
“A lot of trucks already use it. You want to look at how they actually interact with the fence.”
Frost added that San Diego would be a better place to start the wall instead of Texas, where rivers and private property could cause construction snags.