I heard someone saying on Facebook that Trump has given up on the wall, and isn't even talking about it anymore. Wrong!

This is from a Trump Rally in Toledo, January 9, four days ago:

Here's the big thing, ready? You read it today in the newspapers. In the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, we won the big, big, beautiful lawsuit, where they were all suing us. The wall is being built. We built, we built already a tremendous amount, but we're releasing $4 billion of military construction funds to build the biggest section of the wall. It's literally being signed now. It'll be under construction very shortly, in a couple of weeks, and we've already built over 100 miles of wall. How about that hundred miles? And by the end of next year, we're going to have a lot of the wall built, and it's already having a big impact. How about the Democrats? Walls don't work, we want technology. So, what are you going to do? They want drones. Oh good, when people are rushing the caravans, when they're rushing, having a drone flying around that's not going to help you too much, OK?

Let me explain about the "drones" thing—Trump is right that for years, people have been talking about various kinds of high-tech "virtual wall"(including camera drones) which will alert the authorities to crossers.

The concept is the same as a burglar alarm or closed circuit camera, but like those, it's absolutely useless unless it's backed by police who will arrest the burglars. In a post titled The Virtual Fence And The Air Assault, I said that this might work if it were backed up by US Army helicopter-borne troops, including a military police contingent with pistols, batons, and handcuffs (rather than infantry) to round the border crossers up. That was ten years ago.

If that's not going to happen, then build a real wall.

Trump agrees—see Trump plans to divert $7.2 billion from Pentagon for border wall construction: report, from the Hill, only three hours ago.

Watch the rally below: