The Department of Homeland Security finished construction Friday on a 14-mile stretch of border wall replacement stretching from the ocean to Otay Mesa.

Construction crews and engineers from the Army Corps of Engineers lifted into place a final 30-foot-high panel, which will complete a more than $100 million replacement project.

Vietnam-era landing mats have marked the border since the mid-nineteen nineties.

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Border Patrol agent Vincent Pirro told reporters that this section of the border wall replacement is the wall that Trump built.

“This was during his administration. It was funded and approved and it was built under his administration,” Pirro said. “This is Trump’s wall.”

RELATED: Government Report Shows Border Wall Designs Can Be Broken

Construction crews are still working on a 30-foot-high secondary fence that will complement the replacement wall. The section of secondary fence near Otay Mesa stands where eight steel-and-concrete border wall prototypes were erected a few yards from the border. These prototypes were knocked down in February.

Both the new fence and the secondary fence are slatted, allowing border patrol officers to see clearly into Mexico, which they could not do with the landing mats.

Arrests of people crossing the border illegally dropped by 24% between June and July of this year, but still remain much higher than a year ago.

Listen to this story by Max Rivlin-Nadler.

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Max Rivlin-Nadler

Speak City Heights Reporter

I cover City Heights, a neighborhood at the intersection of immigration, gentrification, and neighborhood-led health care initiatives. I'm interested in how this unique neighborhood deals with economic inequality during an unprecedented global health crisis.

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