The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to divert more than $7 billion in funds from the Pentagon to build an additional nearly 900 miles of border wall along the southern border.
Internal planning figures obtained by The Washington Post allegedly showed that the administration is planning to divert $7.2 billion to construction of the border wall.
“The Pentagon funds would be extracted, for the second year in a row, from military construction projects and counternarcotics funding,” The Post reported. “According to the plans, the funding would give the government enough money to complete approximately 885 miles of new fencing by spring 2022, far more than the 509 miles the administration has slated for the U.S. border with Mexico.”
Trump has struggled to get the funding needed to complete the construction of the border wall from Democrats who do not want to secure America’s borders and from Democrat-appointed judicial activists who have repeatedly sabotaged his immigration agenda.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that blocked the Trump administration from diverting billions from military construction funds to fund the border wall.
“The decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, lifts an injunction issued last month in Texas that blocked the reallocation plan,” USA Today reported. “In the 2-1 ruling, judges granted the administration’s request to temporarily halt the nationwide injunction from U.S. District Judge David Briones of El Paso. Congress appropriated the $3.6 billion to the Department of Defense for 127 construction projects, Briones had ruled, so the Trump administration shouldn’t divert it to the border wall.”
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Immigration officials, including acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, gathered [in Yuma, Arizona, on] Friday to celebrate the 100th mile of border barrier—30-foot steel bollards placed a few inches apart—built by the administration. The officials looked on as a representative of the Army Corps of Engineers affixed to the fencing a metal plaque that bore the presidential seal and Mr. Trump’s name.
“This is a milestone achievement for the president…and more importantly, for our country,” Wolf said.
Last year, then-nominee for Attorney General William Barr noted during his confirmation hearing why having a border wall was critical to stopping the flow of illegal immigration into the United States and for slowing down the amount of narcotics that make it on to America’s streets.
“Heroin, fentanyl, all the serious drugs are coming across that border,” Barr said. “And again, I feel it is a critical part of border security that we need to have barriers on the border, we need a barrier system on the border to get control over the border. I think that obviously there are some places that more of the traffic comes over than others but unless you have a system across the border you’re not going to be able to deal with it because you’ll just displace it.”
“If you build a barrier in one place you’ll just displace it to another,” Barr added. “We need a barrier system across the border, part of that is illegal immigration but a big part of it also is preventing the influx of drugs.”