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Has Trump Built The Wall

Build The Wall Enforce The Law Act Introduced

Trump: ‘We will build a wall’

A January 2018 Trump administration proposal for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection called for $18 billion in funding for the wall over the following ten years. It called for “316 miles of additional barrier by September 2027, bringing total coverage to 970 miles , or nearly half the border”, according to the Associated Press, and called for 407 mi of replacement fencing. While on the campaign trail in February 2016, Trump claimed the cost to be just $8 billion for the wall.

The Build the Wall, Enforce the Law Act of 2018 was introduced on October 12 by then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy Estimated at $23.4 billion, the bill, along with the $1.6 billion from the $1.3 trillion spending bill, would have amounted to the $25 billion projected to complete the larger and fortified wall.

Promise: 1000 Miles Of Wall Status: Not Kept

On Tuesday, the president falsely claimed hed promised and delivered 450 miles of border wall.

In fact, that amounts to less than half of his initial promise. And just 47 miles of the 450 miles amounts new structures where none existed before.

In 2015 and 2016, Trump said he expected the border wall would be around 1,000 miles long, with mountains and rivers creating natural barriers, too. More recently, in his 2020 State of the Union address, Trump said that substantially more than 500 miles of border wall would be done by early 2021.

A Customs and Border Protection spokesman told NBC News that the Trump administration has built 453 miles of new border wall system, which includes barriers as well as patrol roads for patrol cars and other surveillance efforts.

The vast majority of it replaces pedestrian and vehicle barriers erected during previous administrations with much taller steel bollard fencing. Trump falsely claimed he was building a completely new border wall throughout much of his administration when in fact he was replacing older fences.

As of January 8, the Trump administration has built just 47 miles of border wall where none existed before. President Barack Obama left office with 654 miles of border fencing in existence, according to a Government Accountability Office report from early 2017 Trump will leave with 701 miles of border fencing, according to CBP. The half-mile section that Trump visited today was completely new, the spokesman said.

Donald Trump Is Not As Stupid As Some Of Us Would Like To Think He Is

In San Diego, looking at prototypes of a border wall last month, Trump laid out some of his wishes for this $25 billion dollar wall. He wants a high wall, because he believes that Mexicans are professional mountain climbers. and one that border agents can see through. You have to know what is on the other side of the wall. You can be two feet away from a criminal cartel and you dont even know that they are there, he said. If you dont have a wall system, were not going to have a country, Trump added.

Things are getting so dire when it comes to making good on this campaign promise for a big border wall, Trump is now asking the Pentagon to try to fork over some dough. He apparently met with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, as reported by CNN, to see if they could rework the budget and find military dollars you know, funds that go to the Department of Defense for actual, effective military personnel and equipment to pay for the wall so he doesnt look like a jerk in front of his supporters. However, to edit the budget you need every single member of Congress approval, and thats not something thats going to happen, especially after the 2018 midterm elections.

https://twitter.com/udfredirect/status/977855968364171264

https://twitter.com/udfredirect/status/901802524981817344

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How Much ‘new Wall’ Trump Has Built Is Up For Debate

Any calculation of the miles of new wall constructed by Mr Trump and his administration depends very much on the definition of the words “new” and “wall”.

Before he took office, there were 654 miles of barrier along the southern border – made up of 354 miles of barricades to stop pedestrians and 300 miles of anti-vehicle fencing.

Now, according to US Customs and Border Protection in its 6 October status report, the southern border has 669 miles of “primary barrier” – the first structure people heading from Mexico to the US will encounter – and 65 miles of “secondary barrier” – which usually runs behind the primary structure as a further obstacle.

This means that in areas where no barricades existed before, they have built 15 miles of new, primary barrier or “border wall system”, as it is called by CBP.

ââAbout a further 350 miles of barrier has been built, according to CBP, made up of replacement structures and some new secondary barrier.

More is planned, too, with 378 miles of new and replacement barrier either under construction or in the “pre-construction phase”. Less than half of this will be in locations where no barriers currently exist, according to CBP.

However, Mr Trump himself doesn’t make a distinction between these new stretches of barrier and replacement structures, regarding both as new wall.

This is because, he says, replacements involve “complete demolition and rebuilding of old and worthless barriers”.

Legislative Action To Overturn And Presidential Veto

Progressive Charlestown: No, You Cannot Declare Emergency to Build Wall

Under the national emergency legislation, Congress can overturn a declaration of emergency legislatively. If the House passes a privileged resolution to overturn, the Senate is required to take up the resolution within eighteen days. If the Senate passes the resolution, by a simple majority vote, the bill goes to the president, who has the option of vetoing it. Congress can override the veto by a two-thirds vote in both houses.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on February 20, 2019, that Democrats would introduce such a resolution in two days. The measure, House Joint Resolution 46, stated: “Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, pursuant to section 202 of the National Emergencies Act , the national emergency declared by the finding of the President on February 15, 2019, in Proclamation 9844 is hereby terminated.”

The House voted to approve the bill on February 27 by a vote of 245182, with thirteen Republicans voting in favor. On March 3, Rand Paul became the fourth Republican senator to declare he would vote for the resolution, improving the chances of passage. The next day he asserted that “at least” ten other Republican senators told him they would also vote for the resolution. On March 14, the Senate voted 5941 to support the bill to overturn Trump’s emergency declaration, with twelve Republicans voting in favor.

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Fact Check: Rudy Giuliani Claim On Violent Crime Increases

From CNNs Paul Murphy

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani claimed that violent crime has been increasing at percentages unheard of in the past.

New York City once described as Americas crime capital, had become by the mid-1990s, Americas safest large city, Giuliani said, blaming current New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Murders, shootings, and violent crime are increasing at percentages unheard of in the past. Were seeing the return of rioting and looting.

Facts First: While there have been significant increases in the rates of murder, shootings, robberies and grand larceny of automobiles in New York to date in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, violent crime rates in every major crime category tracked by NYPD are down significantly since Giuliani was mayor.

According to the NYPDs stats, the rates of seven major felony offenses have dropped 290 percent since Giuliani was in office.

Theres been 259 murders in New York in 2020 so far this year. In the last two years of Giulianis mayorship there were 673 and 649 respectively.

Giuliani saw significant rates of crime drop during his time as mayor, but those drops have largely continued since he left office and remain significantly lower than when Giuliani was in office.

What Will Happen Under Biden

Even before his election victory, Biden had pledged that there will not be another foot of border wall built during his administration. Though he has not released more details, his supporters expect him to stop ongoing construction and cancel contracts for future projects.

Critics of construction want him to go a step further and consider taking down portions of the newly installed bollard fencing in certain environmentally and culturally sensitive areas.

Morgan criticized any effort to stop construction, claiming it would cost taxpayers even more money to cancel the contracts. He also warned it would draw even more migrants and smugglers to the border.

If the Biden team implements the immigration policies that they have campaigned on, that they promised the American people on Day One, they will create an unmitigated crisis in the first few weeks, he said.

However, contracting experts said Biden will have various legal options to stop construction, including the termination for convenience clauses built into federal contracts that allows the government to cancel them any time and provide adequate compensation to contractors.

So any thought that theres going to be a mess at the border, if he stops these contracts, would be misguided, he added. That wouldnt have to happen by any means.

Have any news tips or story ideas about the U.S.-Mexico border? Reach the reporter at , or follow him on Twitter .

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Public Acquisition Of Land

Additionally, privately owned land adjacent to the border would have to be acquired by the U.S. government to be built upon. Property owners in southern Texas will lose easy access to significant portions of their land as the wall is built along but some distance from the Rio Grande. Historic gravesites in South Texas may be impacted. In 2017, satirical party-game publisher Cards Against Humanity purchased a plot of land on the border to prevent the wall from being built there.

Trumps Wall: How Much Has Been Built During His Term

Trump’s Border Wall Has Left a Complicated Legacy

President Donald Trump is visiting the southern border in Texas to claim success in the construction of a border fence with Mexico.

The White House said his visit would mark the completion of more than 400 miles of border wall a promise made, promise kept.

So how much of the border wall has Mr Trump managed to build during his term in office?

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How Many People Worked On The Border Wall

The number of construction workers who worked on the wall isnt readily available. On December 17, 2020, acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan tweeted a claimwithout listing his sourcesthat canceling the border wall contracts will cost taxpayers billions of dollars in termination costs, leave critical materials and innovative technology behind, and force thousands of construction workers to lose their jobs.

According to Construction Dive, the U.S. will save $2.6 billion by canceling the construction, even after termination costs.

Also, the construction contracts might get repurposed instead of getting canceled. In his proclamation, Biden directed his undersecretaries to develop a plan for the redirection of funds concerning the southern border wall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law. The development of the plan shall include consideration of terminating or repurposing contracts with private contractors engaged in wall construction, while providing for the expenditure of any funds that the Congress expressly appropriated for wall construction, consistent with their appropriated purpose.

The Border Region Is Ecologically Rich Because A Lot Of It Has Been Federally Protected

The political boundary between the US and Mexico stretches 2,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, there are three mountain chains, the two largest deserts in North America, vast cattle ranches, a handful of cities and their sprawling suburbs, and the Southern section of the mighty Rio Grande river.

Much of the region has never been heavily populated, and over the years, several large swaths of land have been designated as protected areas. Today there are 25 million acres of protected US public lands within 100 miles of the line. That includes six wildlife refuges, six national parks, tribal lands, wilderness areas, and conservation areas all of them managed by various federal agencies and tribal governments.

On the Mexican side, meanwhile, sit protected areas like El Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar, which abuts the US Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and parts of the Organ Pipe National Monument and Barry M. Goldwater Range in Arizona.

These protected areas have been established, in part, to protect wildlife and plants that span both countries. In the case of El Pinacate and Cabeza Prieta, desert species like the Sonoran pronghorn have been able to migrate back and forth. But in recent years, thats gotten harder with the construction of long sections of vehicle barriers and fences, as you can see from the map.

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How Much Was Actually Built

As of Jan. 8, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the Trump administration had completed 453 miles of border barrier overall.

Much of it replaces barriers that had been put in place by previous administrations, with only 80 miles of primary and secondary barrier in areas where there were previously no structures, according to CBP.

Appropriated Border Wall Funds

Commonsense &  Wonder: Trump wall

Furthermore, Bush makes a dubious claim that wall construction was funded by duly appropriated dollars during the Trump days.

The Trump administration initially requested $13.3 billion through 2020 for wall construction, but Congress provided $4.47 billion through Department of Homeland Security appropriations, according to the Congressional Research Service. Of that total, about $1 billion was directed to barrier replacement projects, $1.4 billion was directed to planning and $2 billion was directed to construction needs in the Rio Grande Valley sector.

Funds appropriated by Congress for wall construction are legally obligated to be used consistent with their appropriated purpose, no matter the administration in office.

The only other money appropriated to border wall construction was part of a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress in 2020. That bill included $900 billion for COVID-19 relief and nearly $1.4 billion for wall funding. Biden has since paused the flow of those funds to border wall construction projects.

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Since January 2017, ~$15 billion has been identified to construct ~738 miles of new border wall system through a combination of Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense funding and the Treasury Forfeiture Fund , the memo reads. Funding received supports planning, design, real estate, environmental, construction and oversight activities.

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Trump Opens Acceptance Speech With Words About Hurricane Laura

President Donald Trump opened his Republican National Convention speech by remarking on Hurricane Laura that devastated communities as it swept through Louisiana and Texas.

We begin this evening, our thoughts are with the wonderful people who have just come through the wrath of hurricane Laura, he said. We are working closely with state and local officials in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, sparing no effort to save lives.

Trump praised law enforcement, local and state officials and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for their efforts to prepare for the storm.

The President said he will to visit the region this weekend.

About the storm: The storm left six people dead in Louisiana, including at least four from falling trees. Laura came ashore as a Category 4 storm early Thursday near the Texas border, tearing off roofs and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of people.

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American Scar, a documentary short by the New Yorker filmmaker Daniel Lombroso, explores some of the border walls unintended consequences.

Verify: Did Trump Build 400 Miles Of Border Wall

PHOENIX The Department of Homeland Security held a ceremony in Texas on Thursday to commemorate 400 miles of new border wall constructed under President Donald Trumps administration.

QUESTION: Did the Trump administration accomplish building 400 miles of new border wall?

The milestone comes less than a week before the 2020 presidential election and Trump is using it as a reminder to voters that hes keeping his promises.

In order to verify whether Trumps administration has built 400 miles of new border wall, 12 News used three sources: Homeland Security data, original reporting at the border by NBC News, and The Center for Biological Diversity.

According to CBP figures, 371 miles of the new wall had been completed earlier this month and the government is adding about 5 miles of wall per week.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf announced Thursday the 400-mile mark had been met.

Even our most ardent critics recognize a wall is being built, said Wolf. A border wall system is effective. A border wall system saves lives.

In early October, an NBC News crew captured images of bulldozers hauling rocks off a mountain in southern Arizona in preparation for new wall construction where a wall didnt exist before. This scene is rare, however.

Homeland Security concedes that only about nine miles of the new wall has been constructed on land where barriers did not exist before.

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Texas Army National Guard Member On Patrol

A member of the Texas Army National Guard is on duty at an opening in the border wall.

In September 2021, thousands of migrants, mostly refugees from Haiti, made camp at a makeshift migrant encampment under a nearby bridge in Del Rio, Texas,, causing U.S. Customs and Border Protection to temporarily close the port of entry there and instead focus more on border patrol.

Border Fences Have Been Terrible For Wildlife And Plants

Work has stopped on Trump’s border wall. See how it looks now

Since 1994, the US government has been erecting barriers to keep people and drugs from Mexico and beyond out. By 2010, about one-third of the border had been fenced with materials ranging from barbed wire to steel, bollard to wire mesh, and chain link. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security has built hundreds of miles of roads to allow the Border Patrol to access remote regions, both fenced and unfenced.

All of this construction has sliced and diced a lot of protected land along the border. And ever since the passage of the Real ID Act of 2005, DHS has had the power to waive most environmental reviews in the name of national security.

So, unlike most federal infrastructure projects, these fences have received little or no input from the public, land managers, conservation groups, or other agencies. Experts had no chance to assess beforehand what impact the fence might have on wildlife, plants, and rivers. Only after the fact have researchers documented instances where fences have interrupted wildlife corridors, and caused erosion and other damage to fragile ecosystems, as well as flooding.

But what evidence we do have is alarming. For instance, Lasky and his co-authors found that the biggest risk comes when fences bisect the range of a small population of a species with a specialized habitat, leaving the majority of the population on one side and the others adrift. His paper found 45 species and three subspecies that the current fence has affected this way.

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