Border Wall Update

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, Politico reports. Testifying at the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee, Shanahan estimated about “a half a mile a day will be produced” during the next six months. The source of the funding, he added, is Homeland Security border funding, diverted Pentagon money, and Treasury forfeiture funds. Shanahan also told the committee there were now 4,364 Guard and active-duty troops on the border, which he said did not affect military readiness. - GOP Insider Brief 5/9/19.

At the rate of one-half mile per day, it takes a year to build 182.5 miles of border wall. At that rate, it will take 10 years to build 1825 miles of border wall.  That means that the Border Patrol and Military will continue to need 10,000 personnel to secure the border for at least another year before personnel costs can begin to be reduced. If it costs $50,000 per year to deploy one guard including vehicles and equipment, it would cost $500 billion a year to keep the border wall secure without a wall. A $25 billion wall investment could save $250 billion a year if personnel could be reduced to 5,000.

Democrats remain committed to bankrupting the US federal government. Obama took the national debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in 8 years. Democrats want open borders and more illegal welfare migrants to vote for them. But welfare needs to be removed for immigrants to remove the economic incentive to migrate to the US.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader