DHS Chief Says Spending Bill Will Help Build ‘Significant Amount of Wall’

From The Daily Signal.com (Dec. 19):

The nation’s acting homeland security secretary said Thursday that the $1.4 trillion spending package making its way through Congress will pay for an enormous amount of new barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The House passed a $1.4 trillion spending package Tuesday with days to go before the federal government would enter a shutdown. Included in the legislation is $1.375 billion for border wall construction.

The package, which allots the same amount of funds as last year’s spending bill, also allows President Donald Trump to keep his authority to tap other government funds for wall construction.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the spending bill will help pay for a “significant” amount of barrier.

The spending package “gets us about 70 miles of new border wall,” Wolf said Thursday on “Mornings with Maria” on the Fox Business Channel. “So combine that with the money we have in ’17, ’18, ’19, the money that we are using from [the Department of Defense] as well, and we’ve got significant amount of money to build significant amount of wall. So we’re anticipating by the end of 2020 that we have somewhere between 400 and 450 miles of new wall.”

The spending bill, which expires at midnight Friday, now heads to the Senate. Trump is expected to sign it when it reaches his desk. [read more]