Donald Trump spent years on the campaign trail promising, if elected, he’d build a wall at the southern border and make Mexico pay for its construction. Trump didn’t make Mexico pay for the wall and Mexico didn’t send 28,000 people to the border in exchange as Trump claims either.
Instead, Trump shut down the government for 35 days in a 2018 – 2019 showdown with Congress over $5 billion in funding for his border wall. After the government reopened in 2019 without Trump receiving border wall funding in the federal budget, he declared a national emergency to build a wall and triggered $1.38 billion for border barriers. That same year, Trump announced he’d take almost $7 billion from military spending and the Treasury Department to supplement the funds authorized by Congress for his wall.
By February of 2020, Trump had diverted a total of $3.8 billion from the Department of Defense to build his border wall. According to the Washington Post, Trump planned to give himself a re-election talking point by taking a total of $7.2 billion from the Pentagon budget for his border wall project, five times the amount authorized by Congress in the 2020 budget. Trump’s plans would bring the total amount of funds budgeted for the wall to $18.4 billion, but according to a Customs and Border Protection report less than 100 miles of newly constructed wall was built as of December 2021.
Years later, Trump is still playing politics with border security. Just a few days ago, he bragged at a rally in South Carolina that he “crushed” the bipartisan immigration bill. In the weeks before Congress voted on the bill, Trump reportedly lobbied members to vote against its passage. Just days before the vote, Trump told the audience at a campaign rally in Nevada to “blame me” if the bill failed to pass.
“Trump has played politics with the border since the day he came down the golden escalator and announced his first run for president. From lying about Mexico paying for a border wall, to diverting billions from military spending for its construction, to tanking bipartisan immigration reform in Congress, Trump has always used the border for his own political self-interest. As president, he’ll execute more of the same inhumane and chaotic border policies from his first term that separated families, cause division in communities across the country, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars,” said American Bridge 21st Century Presidential Campaigns Communications Director, Brandon Weathersby.
Published: Feb 13, 2024 | Last Modified: Feb 21, 2024