Border Wall after all? The prototype starts in September:
Bottom Line: All of the talk about "the wall" not being built this year may have been premature. As anyone who's even taken on a significant home remodeling project is aware, you've got to start the process with plans and designs. The President's recent rally mention that the wall might even be solar equipped wasn't as random as some opined. It turned out that the discussions over next steps for the architectural designs are about to commence.
One of President Trump's earliest executive orders called for the facilitation of the construction of the southern border wall. As I recently cited, many of the President's orders contained 90 to 120 day deadlines for the affected agencies to report back to the President with information and recommendations for next steps: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/25/executive-order-border-security-and-immigration-enforcement-improvement
That initial deadline for the border wall executive order was met and now those recommendations are going to be used to formulate prototypes (architectural designs) for the wall. It's possible that the solar wall idea came out of those recommendations as well. For budgeting purposes spec bids were requested as early as April but now the real planning begins. But what about the wall not being funded?
Well, perhaps in a cleaver move the President received the money needed for up to eight different prototypes to be designed (around $20 million). This is in addition to the money authorized to begin to rebuild the existing walls that have been compromised on the southern border. So it appears as though "the wall" might be right on schedule anyway.