Tag: Trump wall

Trump says he disagreed with privately funded border wall. The builder got $1.7 billion in wall contracts from his administration.

President Donald Trump now claims this privately funded border wall in the Rio Grande Valley — touted as the “Lamborghini” of fences — was built to “make me look bad,” even though the project’s builder and funders are all Trump supporters.

President Donald Trump complained via Twitter on Sunday that a privately constructed border wall in Texas was a bad idea and poorly done — not mentioning that his administration has awarded the builder a $1.7 billion contract to build more walls.

With the backing of Trump supporters, Tommy Fisher built a 3-mile border fence along the Rio Grande, calling it the “Lamborghini” of fences. But just months after completion of his showcase piece directly on the banks of the river, there are signs of erosion along and under the fence that threatens its stability and could cause it to topple into the river if not fixed, experts told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

“I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads. It was only done to make me look bad, and perhsps it now doesn’t even work. Should have been built like rest of Wall, 500 plus miles,” Trump tweeted with a typo in reaction to the news organizations’ report about the wall. Continue reading.

Smugglers sawed into Trump’s border wall 18 times in one month in San Diego area, records show

Washington Post logoSmugglers sawed into new sections of President Trump’s border wall 18 times in the San Diego area during a single one-month span late last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection records obtained by The Washington Post via a Freedom of Information Act request.

The breaches and attempted breaches were made between Sept. 27 and Oct. 27, according to CBP records, with five of the incidents occurring on a single day, Oct. 10. The agency withheld information about the specific locations of the incidents, citing law enforcement sensitivities. The agency said the average cost to repair the damage was $620 per incident.

The records do not indicate whether the one-month span last year is a representative sample of how frequently people are trying to breach new sections of Trump’s border barrier, which are made of tall steel bollards partially filled with concrete and rebar. The Post reported last November that smuggling crews armed with common battery-operated power tools — including reciprocating saws that retail for as little as $100 at home improvement stores — can cut through the bollards using inexpensive blades designed for slicing through metal and stone. Continue reading.

Shoot Migrants’ Legs, Build Alligator Moat: Behind Trump’s Ideas for Border

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The Oval Office meeting this past March began, as so many had, with President Trump fuming about migrants. But this time he had a solution. As White House advisers listened astonished, he ordered them to shut down the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico — by noon the next day.

The advisers feared the president’s edict would trap American tourists in Mexico, strand children at schools on both sides of the border and create an economic meltdown in two countries. Yet they also knew how much the president’s zeal to stop immigration had sent him lurching for solutions, one more extreme than the next.

Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.

View the complete October 1 article by Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis on The New York Times website here.

To pay for Trump’s wall, a hurricane-wrecked base in Puerto Rico loses funding

Washington Post logoSALINAS, Puerto Rico — When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico two years ago, it smashed through the National Guard training base here, sending the plaques that Maj. Gen. José J. Reyes gathered over his U.S. Army career into the howl of an unforgiving wind.

The base, known as Camp Santiago, emerged from the storm much like the rest of the island: damaged, shocked and determined to recover against dim economic odds.

So when Reyes helped secure $331.5 million for the base from the Pentagon’s treasured construction budget, officials thought Maria’s clouds had come with a silver lining.

View the complete September 19 article by Paul Sonne on The Washington Post website here.

Texas Trump voters horrified to discover they’re about to be on the wrong side of his campaign promise

AlterNet logoTexas resident Shirley Menard says she “reluctantly” backed President Donald Trump in the 2016 election — and now she could turn out to be a big loser thanks to the president’s top campaign promise.

As the New York Times reports, Menard learned this past June that the federal government plans to build a 30-foot-tall barrier right in her backyard within the next year to fulfill Trump’s pledge to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I never thought they’d go through a subdivision,” Menard tells the paper. “My blood pressure has not been normal since I got that letter.”

View the complete September 5 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

How President Trump came to declare a national emergency to fund his border wall

President Trump knew that lawmakers were unlikely to ever give him the billions of dollars he wanted to build a wall on the southern border, so in early 2018, he gave aides a directive: Find a way to do it without Congress.

It was hardly an easy assignment. The White House had some flexibility to spend money the way it wanted, but could not move the necessary billions at will. Trump could declare a national emergency, but White House attorneys repeatedly warned him the risk of failure in court was high.

On Friday, Trump did it anyway. Stepping to a microphone in the Rose Garden, the president told reporters he was invoking his powers to declare a national emergency, then acknowledged what his lawyers had been warning him: He will get sued and, at least initially, will probably lose.

View the complete February 15 article by Matt Zapotosky and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s wall words will be used against him

Protesters erect a cardboard wall in front of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas in 2016. Credit: Bill Clark, CQ Roll Call file photo

President may have undercut his own argument that the border emergency is, well, an emergency

If there were a hall of fame of legal self-owns, there would be a spot of honor for a line Friday from President Donald Trump as he announced that he would declare a national emergency to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

To do so, Trump plans in part to use the National Emergency Act of 1976, but he undercut his argument that it was an emergency at all.

“I didn’t need to do this,” Trump said from the Rose Garden, “but I’d rather do it much faster.”

View the complete February 15 article by Todd Ruger on The Roll Call website here.

Trump wings it in feisty, combative Rose Garden emergency announcement

President Donald Trump speaks in the White House Rose Garden on Friday. Trump said he would declare a national emergency to free up federal funding to build a wall along the southern border. Credit: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images

POTUS berates reporters, slams Dems as policy event morphs into campaign rally

ANALYSIS  — A testy and combative President Donald Trump winged it Friday in the Rose Garden, turning an often-rambling defense of his border security emergency into a 2020 assault on Democrats.

Trump has redefined the presidency around his unique style and penchant for unpredictable and unprecedented moves, as well as the sharp rhetoric he uses both at the White House and his rowdy campaign rallies. But there was something different during Trump’s remarks Friday, with the president leading off his remarks by talking about anything but the compromise funding measure and border security actions he signed later that day.

He lauded his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and touted their second denuclearization summit later this month, even talking up that country’s economic potential. On Chinese President Xi Jinping, again, Trump talked about their rosy relationship and predicted: “We’re a lot closer in this country than we ever were with having a real trade deal” with Beijing — yet he struggled to note specific things that might be in the potential deal.

View the complete February 15 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

‘It will create a firestorm’: Mulvaney’s border wall cash grab sparks dissent in White House

The pitfalls of a plan for Trump to shift federal dollars without an emergency declaration are coming into clearer view.

The White House is firming up plans to redirect unspent federal dollars as a way of funding President Donald Trump’s border wall without taking the dramatic step of invoking a national emergency.

Done by executive order, this plan would allow the White House to shift money from different budgetary accounts without congressional approval, circumventing Democrats who refuse to give Trump anything like the $5.7 billion he has demanded. Nor would it require a controversial emergency declaration.

The emerging consensus among acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and top budget officials is to shift money from two Army Corps of Engineers’ flood control projects in Northern California, as well as from disaster relief funds intended for California and Puerto Rico. The plan will also tap unspent Department of Defense funds for military construction, like family housing or infrastructure for military bases, according to three sources familiar with the negotiations.

view the complete February 11 article by Nancy Cook and Eliana Johnson on the Politico website here.