FPI / February 9, 2020

The Trump administration has the funding to build up to 1,000 miles of border wall and is now shifting from raising funds to new border wall construction, a report said.

The Daily Caller, citing White House officials, reported on Sunday that the fiscal year 2021 budget request for Customs and Border Patrol (CBP jumped to $15.6 billion, up roughly 7 percent from last year’s total. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also saw a significant budget bump, with a funding request just shy of $10 billion.

“On the border, there’s great news to report,” a senior U.S. official told The Daily Caller. “The president has kept his promise to secure the border. With funding available, the administration will build up to approximately 1,000 miles of border wall along the southwest border.”

The Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security will provide an additional $8.4 billion toward wall construction, the report said.

“The 2021 budget request, which has increases for infrastructure, technology, and law enforcement personnel, is what’s required to gain operational control of the border,” the official told The Daily Caller.

Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said last month that he expects to meet President Donald Trump’s goal of erecting 450 miles of new border wall construction by the end of 2020.

The CBP reported that border enforcement actions dropped for seven consecutive months to end 2019, a decrease of more than 70 percent from May’s high point, which prompted Trump to declare a humanitarian crisis at the border.

The White House will unveil its fiscal 2021 budget proposal this week, with acting Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought addressing a congressional hearing on the request on Wednesday.

Trump’s budget includes a chapter devoted to saving taxpayers’ money and defines five clear categories of “wasteful” government spending requiring financial cuts, documents reviewed by the Daily Caller show.

The report noted that the budget cuts will target agencies with overlapping and similar goals, agencies that provide similar or identical services to the same group of recipients, programs without a clearly defined federal role, federal programs that mirror state-level initiatives and erroneous payments, and for eliminating the following programs entirely:

• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Education and Research Centers;
• Department of the Interior’s Highlands Conservation Act Grants;
• National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures Grants;
• National Endowment for the Arts Endowment for the Humanities;
• Corporation for National and Community Service (including AmeriCorps).

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