President Donald Trump recently posted four photos on Twitter that seemingly suggested that construction of his long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall was well underway. However, a report from The Guardian revealed that the photos were actually taken just a few weeks ago in Calexico and that they weren’t actually for Trump’s long-promised 2,000-mile wall . During his campaign, Trump’s main battle cry was for the construction of a massive border wall that would cover the entire Mexican border. Trump even proclaimed that the wall would be paid for by Mexico and that it would finally be able to fix the country’s illegal immigration problem.
Trump also tweeted that he had recently been in a “great” briefing to finally start the construction of the “Southern Border WALL.” It isn’t clear just yet who had attended the briefing or if the meeting was actually about the wall itself. The Department of Homeland Security recently revealed in an interview with Fox News that the pictures that Trump uploaded weren’t actually for his planned wall, but were instead pictures of a 2.25-mile barrier renovation in Calexico.
The long-planned renovation was simply to replace the existing wall in the area that was constructed in the 1990s. The old wall, which was constructed out of recycled scrap metal, was being replaced with a 30-foot-high bollard-style wall. According to the Border Patrol, the old wall had been damaged over the years due to numerous breaches from smuggling organizations.
Great briefing this afternoon on the start of our Southern Border WALL! pic.twitter.com/pmCNoxxlkH
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018
Trump’s promise of erecting a 2,000-mile wall has been met with much criticism and equally devastating budget-related hurdles. The president initially requested a $1.6 billion budget for the construction of the wall, but the Department of Homeland Security had estimated that it would actually cost more than $20 billion for Trump’s plans to materialize. Some experts believe that it would actually cost even more than those estimates, given the vast area that needs to be covered along with the manpower needed to operate it.
Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2018
Over the weekend, Trump suggested through social media that he may be able to get the budget for the wall by using Pentagon funding. This suggestion came right after Congress had passed a $1.3 trillion spending package for the Military. Trump justified this idea through a tweet, explaining that the border wall would essentially protect the country against drugs, terrorists, and enemy combatants, which means that it should be part of the country’s National Defense.
