GoFundMe Border Wall Group Begins Construction: Video

A private group that has raised more than $22.7 million to build a border wall has broken ground on privately owned property in the area where New Mexico, Texas and the Mexican state of Chihuahua converge. We Build the Wall, a GoFundMe campaign started by a triple amputee Air Force veteran, has finished a nearly half-mile stretch of the wall, according to social media posts.

The construction was completed in just four days, the group said in the posts that called the area in New Mexico that lacks border fencing “the worst gaping hole” and preferred route for human and drug smugglers.

President Trump made building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration and drug smuggling a cornerstone of his 2016 campaign, but has been dealt numerous setbacks.

The latest came Friday when a federal court blocked Trump from using $1 billion in Defense Department money to fund two high-priority projects, one in New Mexico and the other in Yuma, Arizona. The money was secured under Trump’s declaration of a national emergency along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump has asked for an expedited appeal of U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr.’s Friday order.

Gilliam’s order applied only to the New Mexico and Arizona projects, but the judge made clear that he believed the challengers would likely prevail on their argument that the president wrongly ignored the wishes of Congress by diverting Defense Department money.

The stretch of border wall completed with donations to the We Build the Wall crowdfunding effort connects two 21-mile sections of existing fencing, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told CNN. The network said it was unable to independently confirm that the privately funded stretch connects those two sections.

“Border Patrol told us it's the No. 1 most important miles to close,” Bannon said. “The tough terrain always left it off the government list. And that's what we focus on — private land that is not in the program and take the toughest first.”

The privately funded border wall is being constructed by Fisher Industries of North Dakota, a company Trump recommended to the Army Corps of Engineers for the government’s wall, according to The Washington Post.

Brian Kolfage Jr., an Iraqi war veteran from Miramar, Florida, started the border wall crowdfunding campaign in December, saying that if each of the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump would donate $80, “we can build the wall.”

Most estimates put the cost of the border wall at between $12 billion and $20 billion.

“It’s amazing to me how crowdfunding can successfully raise a lot of money, and how many Americans care about this,” Kris Kobach, a former Kansas secretary of state and immigration hardliner who serves as We Build the Wall’s general counsel, told CNN.

The idea behind the private effort is to “supplement and complement what the federal government is doing,” Kobach said. “We can complement it by closing the gap and making that wall in El Paso that much more effective.”

A site in Texas and another one in California are next on the group’s list, Kobach said.

Jeff Allen, one of the owners of the property where the privately funded wall is being built, said it will address problems he has encountered for the last half dozen or so years.

“We have dealt with illegals coming across. We have been attacked by illegals coming across. We have been burglarized by illegals,” Allen told the El Paso Times. “We have drug traffickers coming through here and anyone who is against this is against America.”

Kofage and other supporters were triumphant on Facebook.

“WE DID IT!,” Kofage wrote Monday, adding in another post on Tuesday that “We The People” accomplished what the mainstream media “said wasn’t possible.”

Some El Paso leaders said the wall escalates tensions over immigration.

“It’s deeply disturbing when outsiders, like Kris Kobach and Steve Bannon, come in and use our community and people as a backdrop to further their racist agenda," U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat, said in a statement. "It’s even more disturbing that a business in our community is furthering this xenophobic narrative. While this wall may be necessary fuel for the president’s political campaign, it will not prevent people from seeking asylum.”

Monument One, the area where the wall is being constructed is historically significant, El Paso City Councilman Peter Svarzbein told the El Paso Times.

“I’ve gone numerous times, brought visitors from out of town (to) see and take in the historical and cultural significance without a border fence,” Svarzbein said. “It’s a federal park. I am concerned about public access to remain for this federal park that highlights the best of the values, culture and history of our community here on the border.”

He added: “I think anybody would hate to see their home as-a-made for TV prop for anybody’s political campaign.”