Jason Hopkins on September 3, 2019
President Donald Trump is reportedly moving forward with his plan to redirect billions in military funds toward wall construction at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Trump administration is calling lawmakers whose districts will be affected, telling them that a plan to divert $3.6 billion from military construction projects to the southern border wall will be executed this week, according to House aides who spoke with Politico.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received a call from Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Tuesday, explaining the reallocation plan. Around half of the military funding will come from construction projects within the U.S. while the other half will be taken from construction projects outside the country.
The White House has reallocated funds a number of funds since declaring an emergency at the southern border in February of this year.
The Department of Homeland Security revealed in August that it was reprogramming a total of $271 million in funding for immigration enforcement. $116 million will help the department add additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) beds for detained migrants and the transportation of migrants to ICE detention facilities. Another $155 million will help fund judicial proceedings related to Remain in Mexico, a policy that keeps U.S. asylum seekers in Mexico as they await for their cases to be adjudicated.
“This realignment of resources allows DHS to address ongoing border emergency crisis by alleviating the surge along the Nation’s Southwest Border while minimizing the risk to overall DHS mission performance,” Homeland Security said in an August statement at the time.
Funding for wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border has been the source of intense political battle between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats, even resulting in the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history between late 2018 and early 2019. The compromise that ended the shutdown gave Trump $1.375 billion in funding for the wall, but his emergency declaration has allowed him allocate billions more.
While he has been able to move forward with some construction projects, Democrats and other progressive have repeatedly sued the administration in an effort to stop progress.
The White House and Department of Defense did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
