President Trump’s wall is being built, and this year should see it grow considerably.
The administration plans an election-year push to build hundreds more miles of new wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and will use $7.2 billion in Defense Department funds to do it.
Trump declared a state of emergency at the border last year, and used his powers to redirect about $6.7 billion in Pentagon funding toward border security.
The new money, combined with the old, may be enough to erect 885 miles of barrier in coming years, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The new cash would mean the president has secured $18 billion in all for a wall on the border, defying both Democrats and moderate Republicans who declared after the 2018 elections that such a wall was a non-starter.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Monday that it hoped to build 576 miles with the money Trump moved around in 2019.
Trump campaigned on a pledge to “build the wall” and the money being shifted around the Defense Department could enable him to build more than 800 miles in all.
So far the administration has 101 miles of steel bollard wall to show for its efforts, but 100 of those replaced inferior barriers that predated the president’s time in office.
