"Nearly three years after President Trump took office, work is finally underway on one of his key campaign promises," Norah O'Donnell said on Wednesday's CBS Evening News. Reporter Mireya Villarreal looked at the first new border wall being constructed under Trump's watch, in Donna, Texas. The new section won't be completed until January 2021, she noted, and the initial eight-mile stretch will cost $167 million.
"All told, nearly $10 billion has been set aside from government agencies for wall funding — and that's a bill U.S. taxpayers, not Mexico, are footing," Villarreal noted. At least 78 miles of border fencing has been replaced since 2017, and the Trump administration is shooting for 80-90 miles of new wall over the next year or 18 months, a Border Patrol official told Villarreal, calling it an "aggressive" target.
At least 31 miles of that new barrier will be built by Fisher Sand and Gravel, a company Trump has repeatedly pressured the Army Corps of Engineers and Department of Homeland Security to hire, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a booster of the North Dakota company and recipient of donations from its CEO, Tommy Fisher, tells The Washington Post. The Pentagon disclosed Monday that Fisher was awarded $400 million to build a new barrier in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona by the end of 2020.
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Trump has been impressed by Tommy Fisher's border wall pitches on Fox News, Cramer has said, but the Army Corps of Engineers had previously dismissed Fisher's bids as subpar. Fisher has also built a few miles of border wall on private land under contract with the conservative crowdfunded group "We Build the Wall." A Texas state judge ordered a halt Tuesday to the company's construction on land near the the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, because the barrier — being built without permits or an impact study and despite a cease-and-desist request from the International Boundary and Water Commission — risks doing "imminent and irreparable harm" to the nature preserve.
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