President Trump is considering using billions of dollars of Army Corps of Engineers funding to build more than 300 miles of barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a report published Thursday evening.
Trump spoke with top defense officials while flying to the southern border Thursday about having the Army Corps build a 30-foot bollard-style steel barrier along 315 miles of the 2,000-mile boundary, according to NBC News. Currently, roughly 600 miles has a wall or other type of restrictive boundary.
The Army Corps project would take 18 months from start to finish, Trump was reportedly told. New or enhanced barriers would go in at areas with the highest levels of illegal immigration, including the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas; San Diego, Calif.; El Centro, Calif.; and Yuma, Ariz.
But the means of attaining the funding could land Trump in trouble.
The president would have to declare a national emergency, which under U.S. law would give him the authority to take money from civil works projects and appropriate it for the border barrier. Such a decision is all but guaranteed to be challenged in court.
As a candidate in 2016, Trump called for a concrete wall. However, following the construction of eight prototype barriers in San Diego, Calif., in 2017, Customs and Border Protection concluded a steel bollard-style one was harder to climb over or chisel through.
The specific pot of money Trump would have to tap into would be from projects where natural disasters have devastated regions of Puerto Rico and California.
The Trump administration would use $2.5 billion set aside for reconstruction projects in Puerto Rico, which was ravaged by Hurricane Maria in September 2017. The White House would also tap into $2.4 billion meant for projects in California where floods and wildfires have been a tremendous issue.
On Wednesday, Trump threatened to cut Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to California to combat wildfires, claiming the money that has already been sent was being wasted by poor forest management.
Trump and Democrats have been unable to reach a deal to fund one-quarter of the federal government over his call for any bill to include $5.7 billion for a border barrier.
