Secret Service: We're Making WH Fence 'Taller, Stronger'

If you build it, they won't come. That's what the Secret Service is hoping its new plan to raise the White House fence by 5 feet will mean, the latest effort, after a lot of red tape, to stop people from trying to jump it, NBC Washington reports. Per an agency report and a Secret Service statement cited by CNN, anticipated construction on the "taller, stronger" fence would begin in 2018, lengthening the fence from 6 feet to 11 feet 7 inches and adding a new concrete "footing" and "foundation," as well as other "anti-climb features" and "intrusion detection technology."

"The current fence simply is not adequate for a modern era," a Secret Service official said in the recorded brief. "[We] have now a society that tends to want to jump over the fence and onto the 18 acres." Donald Trump was one of the first to react to the news, the Hill reports. The "presumptive" GOP nominee put up a Facebook post that read: "President Obama understands that you build strong, tall, beautiful walls to keep people out who don't belong. People who get permission can enter the White House LEGALLY!" (There've been quite a few fence-jumpers over the past few years.)