President Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget calls for the construction of “a physical wall” on the Mexican border, a recommitment to a top Trump campaign promise.
The budget proposal, released Tuesday, calls for a $2.6 billion investment in border security, including “funding to plan, design and construct a physical wall along the southern border.”
“This investment would strengthen border security, helping stem the flow of people, drugs, and other illicit material illegally crossing the border,” the document reads.
The president’s budget is a request to Congress for funding. Congress will determine actual spending. Nevertheless, the document is a statement of Trump’s intentions.
“We are absolutely dead serious about the wall,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said at a White House briefing Tuesday. Mulvaney said that it is a top-three budget priority for Trump, along with taking care of veterans and defense and addressing the debt.
Trump’s commitment to following through with an actual border wall — a proposal opposed by Democrats and some Republicans, including some in districts along the border — was questioned after the spending deal for the rest of fiscal 2017, which ends Sept. 30, did not include funding for a physical wall.
After the administration reached that deal with Congress at the beginning of May, Mulvaney defended it on the grounds that it upgraded existing border security features, such as fences.
“We’re going to continue to press on” in requesting more funding for the wall, Mulvaney said.
The administration has not yet decided on specifics relating the the wall, such as the material that will be used to make it, and different wall types will be slated for different parts of the border, Mulvaney said.
He added that some of the funding sought for fiscal year 2018 will go toward the infrastructure for wall construction, such as running access roads and material to the border, rather than to the wall itself. “You don’t automatically, magically build a wall in the middle of nowhere,” Mulvaney told reporters.
The Justice Department said the department is planning on spending almost $2 million on fighting land claims in court.
There is a $1.8 million request by the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division to hire 12 attorneys “to meet the litigation, acquisition and appraisal demands during the construction along the border between Mexico and the United States.”
Reporter Kelly Cohen contributed to this report.
