In Texas, wall deal looks like a tall tale
White House still struggles to explain Trump’s 115-mile brag
WASHINGTON — On Christmas Eve, the third day of the ongoing government shutdown, President Donald Trump launched a flurry of tweets, one of them announcing that he was in the Oval Office “and just gave out a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall in Texas.”
On Thursday, Day 13 of the wall showdown, administration officials and allies still were struggling to explain any new border wall construction that Trump said he contracted amid his standoff with Democratic leaders in Congress.
The uncertainty was compounded by Thursday’s expected vote by House Democrats to reopen the government without addressing Trump’s demand for more than $5 billion for a wall, which he has recently taken to calling a “steel slat barrier.”
Disputed border wall legislation for 2019 – now at the center of the partial government shutdown – calls for 64 miles of new border wall construction and one mile of replacement wall in the Rio Grande Valley. But that funding – currently set at $1.6 billion – has yet to be approved by Congress, much less doled out in contracts.
Asked about Trump’s new contract claims, the White House pointed to existing – and possible future – border construction awards using money that already has been approved by Congress but not yet spent by the administration over the past two years.
An administration official requiring anonymity said only that the government had “obligated” – or authorized – money from the 2017 and 2018 budget years to cover 115 miles of wall, “most of which will be completed by the end of the year.”
“The money is being spent and the wall is being built,” the official added, “quickly and efficiently.”
Obligating money includes placing orders and awarding contracts, though it can also entail simply transferring funds between government agencies to cover upcoming projects. Moreover, the 2017 and 2018 spending bills specifically barred Trump from using the money on the sort of concrete slabs pictured in the CBP’s highly-publicized wall prototypes.
Pressed for further clarification on the specifics behind Trump’s tweet, the White House referred inquiries to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to requests for information about any new wall contracts.
18 miles of wall so far
Customs and Border Protection contract announcements since Trump’s inauguration list four border wall projects in Texas covering a total of 18 miles. Four of those miles involve replacing existing fencing in El Paso.
That includes 14 miles of new levee wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley near McAllen, plus the four miles of steel bollard wall construction in El Paso to replace existing chain link fencing.
CBP officials, who are responsible for awarding border wall contracts along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, also recently announced awards to construct a series of new border wall gates in the Rio Grande Valley using money appropriated by Congress in 2017.
Border officials have long identified the Rio Grande Valley as a hotbed of illegal border crossing from Mexico. The levee wall projects there, slated to begin in February, were approved by Congress in March as part of a spending bill that provided nearly $1.6 billion for border security, including 33 miles of new levee and pedestrian fencing in the Rio Grande Valley.
No other publicly available contracts or budget documents point to the 115 miles of Texas border wall Trump said he had “just” approved on December 24. Combined with the 65 miles of new or improved barriers that could be authorized in the pending Senate spending bill for 2019, the administration eventually could lay claim to about 97 miles of upgraded border security in Texas, but that is still short of Trump’s claim to contracts in hand for 115 miles.
While some supporters have suggested that his tweet could have anticipated Texas border wall projects funded from his pending $5 billion request to Congress, Trump has doubled down on his contract claim and vowed to follow up with a trip to Texas later this month.
“Yesterday I gave out 115 miles’ worth of wall, 115 miles in Texas,” Trump said on Christmas Day. “It’s going to be built, hopefully rapidly. I’m going there at the end of January for the start of construction.”
‘It’s not a wall’
The confusion about his claim, along with changing accounts of what materials would constitute a “wall,” have clouded the ongoing debate about border security at a time when Trump has been under increasing pressure from his conservative base to make good on his biggest campaign promise.
That promise was undermined last week when retired Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s departing chief of staff, gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times suggesting that a literal wall – originally promised as a physical barrier that Mexico would pay for – simply isn’t in the cards.
“To be honest, it’s not a wall,” Kelly said. “We left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration.”
Trump pushed back against Kelly’s account in another tweet: “An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED.”
But if Texas is to be ground zero in Trump’s campaign promise of a border wall, the state’s congressional delegation has yet to hear much about his purported 115 miles’ worth of contracts.
An aide to Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a top lieutenant for Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said his office has no details. The office of fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who has vocally encouraged Trump to fight for the wall money, did not respond to a request for information.
Texas U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican who ended his tenure as Homeland Security Committee Chairman on Wednesday, also did not respond.
Several Texas border Democrats, buoyed by their party’s new House majority on Thursday, expressed bewilderment about purported Christmas Eve contracts.
An aide to Brownsville Democrat Filemon Vela, one of the most outspoken congressional opponents of Trump’s proposed wall, said that his office was told by outgoing GOP House Homeland Security Committee staffers that Trump was referring to a combination of current and possible future contracts that could cover as much as 120 miles of the border with Mexico.
Some of that, however, could depend on whether the negotiations to end the partial government shutdown gets him the $5 billion he wants for a border wall.