Release Date:
September 29, 2020BLUF: The Trump administration is building new wall and doing so faster than ever before. Currently wall construction continues at the southwest border (SWB) with the administration’s goal of 450 new miles of wall system on track for the end of the calendar year.
As summed up below by Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, the current status of the wall system’s construction is summed up as follows:
341 new miles completed
240 new miles under construction
157 new miles under the pre-construction processFurthermore, as Acting Secretary Chad Wolf illustrated in his recent State of the Homeland Address, the timeline has been accelerating since construction began:
“In January, we reached 100 miles of new border wall system. In June, we achieved 200 miles. In August, we marked the 300th mile—and by the end of this calendar year we will reach over 450 miles of new border wall system.”
Now construction is moving at a rate of approximately 10 miles per week, setting the administration up to complete its year-end goal with time to spare.
This 450-mile section of constructed wall is significant as it will mark the end of DHS’s first round of efforts to secure the SWB with physical borders. These are some of the highest-trafficking and therefore most critical sectors of the southern border for illegal crossings and apprehensions.
These numbers point to the department’s unrelenting efforts to secure the American people and restore integrity to America’s broken immigration system despite widespread, transparently political obstruction in both Congress and the courts over the course of the administration.
Finally, as hundreds of new miles of border wall system have been constructed, they have pushed cartels to traffic their poisonous products precisely where DHS is best equipped— our Ports of Entry. The drugs we are seizing as a result of this new wall that never enter and devastate our communities, and never line the pockets of cartels.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/09/29/dhs-wall-construction-update-september-29-2020
