There's reportedly just $20 million in existing funds for Trump's border wall
President Trump's plan to build a southern border wall has hit a snag, with the Department of Homeland Security only able to come up with enough money to cover two miles of fencing, Reuters reports.
Looking at a document prepared by the DHS and given to congressional budget staff last week, Reuters found that the agency has identified just $20 million that can be re-directed to the project — $5 million from a fence project that came in under budget in Naco, Arizona, and $15 million from a stalled project to install cameras on top of trucks along the border. The White House has said the wall would be financed using "existing funds and resources" from DHS, but so far, there's just enough to pay for a few contracts for wall prototypes; as Reuters previously reported, it's estimated the entire project would cost $21.6 billion, at $9.3 million per mile of fence and $17.8 million per mile of wall.
In order to move forward, Trump will need to convince Congress to appropriate funds. He pledged during his campaign that he would make Mexico pay for a wall along the southern border, then announced the U.S. would foot the bill, with Mexico reimbursing taxpayers later.
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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