A triple-amputee veteran has raised more than $4.3 million as of Thursday morning to help fund the southern border wall.
Brian Kolfage, an airman who lost both his legs and one of his hands in Iraq, started the GoFundMe page over the weekend and, in less than a week, raised $4.3 million of the $1 billion goal.
“Like a majority of those American citizens who voted to elect President Donald J. Trump, we voted for him to Make America Great Again,” Kolfage said in the fundraiser description. “President Trump’s main campaign promise was to BUILD THE WALL. And as he’s followed through on just about every promise so far, this wall project needs to be completed still.”
Kolfage was on his second deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004 when a 107mm rocket shell exploded three feet from him, when the base he was at came under rocket attack in the middle of the night, according to his website’s description of the incident.
Eleven months after the attack, which caused him to have both his legs and left hand amputated, Kolfage walked out of Walter Reed Military Medical Center, and to this day remains the most severely wounded Airman to survive any war.
Kolfage is married and has two children, he often makes trips back to Walter Reed to visit recently wounded soldiers.
The Purple Heart recipient is now dedicated to helping raise the money to fund Trump’s border wall.
President Trump has said that $5 billion is needed to fund the border wall, and Kolfage said that his team is working with GoFundMe to raise the current $1 billion limit.
Democrats are deadlocked with the president on funding amount, and the Senate passed a GOP-proposed continuing resolution Wednesday night that does not include any funding for the border wall.
Nine federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, will run out of funding Friday at midnight if a spending bill is not passed. Trump has not yet signed the short-term bill, but congressional leaders told the Washington Post that they expect him to sign it before the deadline.
If signed, the spending bill for these agencies will be decided on by the next deadline, Feb. 8, after the new Congress is sworn in and Democrats take power in the House.
Democratic leadership has said they would be willing to allot $1.6 billion to border security but opposed any money for a wall. Trump has said he will not agree to an amount below full funding. Last week he said he would be “proud to shut down the government” for border security.
Kolfage said a legal team is working on drafting a document that will make sure the funds from the GoFundMe page, after donated to the government, are used solely for construction of the border wall.
“We are working with a law firm on a legal document that will bind the government to using the funds for the border wall itself, nothing else,” Kolfage said. “We will hold all funds and not release a single penny until we have all legal aspects covered to ensure our money goes only to the wall.”
