Panel OKs border wall funds

President Trump’s longpromised wall across the southern border took a step closer to reality yesterday when a House panel — not Mexico — OK’d $10 billion in funding for the controversial campaign promise.

The House Homeland Security Committee approved a border security bill that authorizes up to $10 billion for the construction of the wall, as well as $5 billion to improve ports of entry, the addition of 5,000 agents for both Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, and state reimbursement up to $35 million for using National Guard assets for border security, according to The Hill.

The measure succeeded on a party-line vote of 1812 with Republicans leading the charge.

“We have been talking about border security for many years,” Chairman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican congressman, said in a statement.

“Now that we finally have a partner in the White House who has prioritized this issue, it’s time for Congress to do its part and get the job done,” McCaul said. “I look forward to working with my colleagues in both chambers to get this bill to the president’s desk so we can finally provide the American people with the security they have long demanded and deserve.”

But the road toward final passage and delivery to President Trump’s desk, is laid with several difficult, if not insurmountable, hurdles.

The bill will be taken up by the Republican-controlled House, where it’s likely to pass, again largely on party lines.

But in the Senate, where a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority would be required, the funding component is likely to face its toughest challenge.

While Republicans hold a razor-thin 52-48 majority, they don’t have enough members to cross that threshold, and Senate GOPers in particular have yet to demonstrate they can even collaborate toward consensus on legislation within their own ranks, even on unifying campaign promises, such as repealing Obamacare.

But Trump has shown a willingness to wheel and deal with Democrats, who themselves are still in search of a permanent fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — which allows young immigrants brought into America illegally to be shielded from deportation.

Trump has insisted the wall — a campaign staple and a popular refrain during his rallies — will still be built, and that Mexico will pay for it.

But the White House has had to concede that American taxpayers will be the ones to front the costs, not the Mexican government.