Trump's Budget Includes $2.7B For 74 Miles Of Border Wall, Most Of It In Texas

AUSTIN, TX — The federal budget for the next fiscal year includes a $2.7 billion earmark for border security that includes 74 miles of a border wall, most of its expanse in Texas, according to published reports.

The budget item comes after the White House originally backed off on pushing for the project in favor of funding the government until Oct. 1 following Democrats' unwillingness to consider wall construction funding.

That was then. Now, the proposed Department of Homeland Security calls for $1.6 billion to construct 74 miles of wall mostly in the Rio Grande Valley, including 28 miles to continue a levee wall in Hidalgo County that would double as a levee wall and deterrent for border crossings, as the Austin American-Statesman reported.

There's also $1.5 billion for detention centers and transportation to expel immigrants, along with funding for surveillance technology (hot air balloons and the like) and the hiring of 5,000 more border patrol agents.

The lion's share of the envisioned first part of the wall is in Texas, save for 14 miles along San Diego, Calif. Currently, there is just over 650 miles of fencing along the roughly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

“We are absolutely dead serious about the wall,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said on Tuesday, as quoted by the Statesman. “In fact, after taking care of national security and the vets, my guess is, it’s in the president’s top three. In fact, I know for a fact that it is.”

Border wall construction has long been a goal of Donald Trump, who has vowed to have Mexico pay for it—a scenario that seems unlikely. Trump has since clamped down on his vow to have Mexico pay for the wall given Mexican officials' assertions they would never do that, saying the country would end up paying for it in some other form such as heightened trade-related fees.

But the overall budget as proposed is facing increasing resistance, from Democrats and Republicans alike. On Tuesday, several prominent Republicans—including Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham—labeled Trump's proposed budget as "dead on arrival."

That assessment is based not on wall construction alone, but on departmental budget-slashing viewed as too onerous—including cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program of up to 25 percent and Medicaid by half, some $800 billion through the course of ten years.

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