Pentagon Announces It Has Enough Funds to Build 256 Miles of Border Wall!

The NY Times had more info:

The Pentagon has redirected enough money to build 256 miles of barriers along the southwestern border, including 63 miles within six months, the acting defense secretary told lawmakers on Wednesday.

The remarks by the secretary, Patrick M. Shanahan, were a major step in President Trump’s effort to build his border wall without congressional authorization since he declared a national emergency and took other measures to redirect funds in February. They came the same day immigration officials reported that illegal border crossings continued to surge in April, with the highest number of monthly arrests since 2007.

Mr. Trump’s efforts to divert funds to build the barriers are facing challenges in court, and have met fierce resistance from Democrats and some Republicans in Congress. Democrats have also expressed skepticism about a White House request for billions of dollars more in enforcement efforts at the border.

But Mr. Shanahan, testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee, vowed to push ahead. He said about half a mile of barrier would be built each day, using money that includes funds reallocated from the Department of Homeland Security and Treasury forfeiture assets.

“How you will see this materialize in the next six months is that about 63 additional new miles of wall will come online,” Mr. Shanahan said.

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Mr. Shanahan, who said there are also now 4,364 National Guard and active-duty troops along the border, has already authorized the first transfer of Defense Department funds to fencing construction.

Democrats, particularly in the House majority, have continued to push back against Mr. Trump’s wall plans. In a spending bill passed this month by the House Appropriations subcommittee focused on military construction and veterans affairs, lawmakers made a point of denying the administration’s request for money to replace the reallocated funds and for future installments of wall funding.

“The committee believes that Congress must assert its role as a coequal branch of the federal government and insist upon the regular appropriation of funds,” wrote the committee, led by Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida. “The committee believes that military construction dollars should be used only for the purpose they are provided.”

And from Politico:

Enough funding has been placed on contract to build 256 miles of barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan told Congress Wednesday.

Testifying at the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee, Shanahan also estimated about a half-mile a day of border barriers would be built over the next six months.

“We now have on contract sufficient funds to build about 256 miles of barrier,” Shanahan told Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). The source of the funding, Shanahan added, is Homeland Security border funding, diverted Pentagon money and Treasury forfeiture funds.

“How you will see this materialize in the next six months is that about 63 additional new miles of wall will come online,” he said. “So about a half a mile a day will be produced.”

President Donald Trump roiled Congress by moving to divert billions of dollars toward his signature border wall, including $3.6 billion in military construction funds. The Pentagon’s fiscal 2020 budget requests $7.2 billion for the border, split evenly between backfilling raided military construction projects and funds for new barriers.

Last month, the Pentagon awarded two contracts for nearly $1 billion for border barrier construction.

Equally controversial is the administration’s troop deployment to the Southern border. And Shanahan told appropriators there are now 4,364 Guard and active-duty troops on the border.

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