Trump at Orlando rally: >“We are building the wall. We’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year.”
Reality: >Mr. Trump is once again mixing projects to replace existing barriers with construction of entirely new sectors of a wall along the southwestern border — and inflating the mileage. >The Customs and Border Protection agency has received funding for 258 miles of barriers: 175 miles from congressional appropriations, 30 miles from a Treasury Department asset forfeiture fund and 53 miles from the Pentagon’s coffers, according to an agency spokesman. >That’s 142 miles under what Mr. Trump claimed. Even that figure relies on counting replacement projects as new wall, on contracts that have yet to be awarded and on funding that is tenuous. The 40 miles funded in the 2017 fiscal year, for example, is to replace old barriers with new fencing, while a federal judge in May blocked Mr. Trump from using the Pentagon funds to build his wall. nytimes.com/2019/06/18/us/politics/trump-fact-check-rally.html
Trump works to maintain illusions of progress, as his main promises go unfulfilled latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-claims-progress-for-promises-unfulfilled-20190305-story.html >Yet the bill included just $1.375 billion to construct new bollard fencing on 55 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border — far short of the $5.7 billion he demanded. So far, the only construction underway has been repairs to existing stretches of wall, built under his predecessors.
