Trump's border wall lurches closer to schedule
· Axios
The U.S. has built roughly 50 miles of primary border wall along the southern border, 5.5 miles of buoy barriers in the water and 13.2 miles of secondary barriers, Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott told Congress on Thursday.
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Why it matters: The $46 billion project has been stalled by contracting issues and community resistance. But Scott told Congress the effort is now "ahead of schedule and we're below budget."
By the numbers: The agency anticipated that it could build about 10 miles of wall per week, according to an interview with the Washington Examiner.
- Scott's figures show progress closer to about 3.5 miles constructed per week since early-February.
- Scott did not share figures for the stretches of the southern border that will be covered by "detection technology."
The big picture: Trump's signature construction project depended on a major cash infusion from Congress that didn't reach the agency until last summer.
- It took months for the first contracts to be awarded, and the project met further delays because of additional reviews implemented by then-Secretary Kristi Noem for all spending over $100,000.
- The contract oversight policy delayed about 200 miles of border wall earlier this year.
- The project is also facing acute local pushback: Residents and elected officials in the Big Bend sector have fought hundreds of miles of planned wall through national and state parks. They are working to prevent construction on private property and archeologically important sites.
Between the lines: Scott also shared that he's traveling to the border for the next five days for meetings, where local residents and elected officials have been skeptical about the wall construction.
- "So the [border crossing] numbers went down, and all of that happened without a single foot of border wall or even a buoy," Rep. Henry Cuellar (R-Texas) said in the hearing. "It was policy, repercussions at the border that helped and working with our partners."
- "Now my communities are concerned about the construction and the potential flood risks, impact to drinking water and threats to public lands that we have."
The bottom line: Scott defended the construction by saying it was an investment in long-term security.
- "We have almost 11,000 Department of War personnel on the border helping us create a level of deterrence and that is not a sustainable model," Scott said. "Building the border wall is actually an investment that saves American tax payers money."