The Trump administration is painting the U.S.-Mexico border fence black to make the steel so hot migrants won't climb it.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem unveiled the plans Aug. 19 in a news conference in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, while workers ran paint rollers up the steel bollards behind her.

When asked about the possibility that critics might call the heat-inducing paint job cruel, Noem said: "Don’t touch it."

Noem said the request to paint it black came from President Donald Trump .

"Too high to climb. Too narrow to squeeze through. And now, at the President's direction, it will be painted black – so hot to the touch that criminal illegal aliens won’t even try," Noem said in a post on X .

As USA TODAY has previously reported, hundreds of miles of 30-foot barrier at

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