U.S. Customs and Border Protection requested $1.6 billion in 2018 funding for the border wall. Steven Dennis with Bloomberg News said Congress plans to start debating the budget next month.
“Trump is going to call it the wall, the Democrats are going to say, ‘hey we gave him $1.6 billion dollars (for) border security, it’s a fence, it’s whatever,” said Stevens.
The House passed a budget with the funding but the measure hasn’t been approved by the Senate. The reality of President Trump's border wall is just eight prototypes paid with money re-purposed from the existing department of homeland security budget.
“$1.6 billion that doesn’t build you a lot of wall. That’s like 60-70 miles of wall. It’s a 2,000 mile border. Even if the Democrats completely cave and give the president exactly what he wants, he’ll have enough wall for a photo op, but not the wall that people envisioned,” said Stevens.
Estimates of construction costs range from 12-billion-dollars to more than 21-billion-dollars.
No funding has been appropriated beyond the testing phase.