Trump’s Border Wall Update
Bottom Line: It’s been nearly a year since my previous update on the border wall. A year ago, the battle was still waging for funding for the wall and 99% of “wall” construction had been to fix or replace existing border wall which was compromised. A year later a lot has happened. First, construction to repair and replace approximately 280 miles of border wall has been completed. Second, the rate of construction of new wall was ticking along at a snail’s pace due to legal challenges posed by activists. Combine that with budget battles over funding and a year ago we were only averaging 1.7 miles of new wall per month. That all changed once the Trump administration won the legal challenges over the allocation of defense construction funds for the border wall and now here’s where we stand based on data available from Customs and Border Patrol.
- Approximately 870 miles of border wall (an increase of 216 miles under the Trump administration)
- 45% of our Southern border with Mexico containing some form of barrier – up from 34%
- An average of 18 miles of new “wall” being built per month
Aside from this progress is another interesting dynamic. At the pace from a year ago it would have taken 59 years to complete President Trump’s vision of a border wall with Mexico. Because of the progress made over the past year, that’s now down to 4.9 years. Maybe it’s just a coincidence or maybe the pace has deliberately picked up to that level, regardless, if President Trump were reelected and kept the wall moving along at about this pace or a little better...he’d have the border wall complete just about the time he’d exit office. You can already envision him existing office with a big banner saying, “Promises Made, Promises Kept”. It might well be all part of the part. But for now, the progress has been real as the President began to highlight on his trip to Arizona, and it’s evident that the president was correct in saying it was possible to complete during his presidency. Of course, all of that is dependent on him winning a second term. To be continued...