GOP gives OK to $5B wall request
WASHINGTON» President Donald Trump’s Senate GOP allies are pushing to give him his full $5 billion request to build about 200 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, but the plan ran into opposition from Democrats and is a non-starter with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The wall money is contained in a $71 billion draft funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that cleared its first hurdle in a Senate panel on Tuesday. Senate Homeland Security Appropriations chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., announced the $5 billion figure.
The money faces an uphill slog. Tuesday’s subcommittee vote was routine, but a heated debate awaits on Thursday when the legislation is voted on in the full Appropriations Committee, where Democrats promise votes to cut the wall funding back.
Trump won $1.4 billion earlier this year through the regular budget process. He almost immediately declared a national emergency that triggered his ability to conduct a recently announced $3.6 billion transfer from military base construction. If the $5 billion is added to prior-year appropriations and various transfers from the Pentagon, Trump would have obtained almost $15 billion for the wall.
The new GOP-backed money comes after Trump roiled Capitol Hill by transferring $6.1 billion from Pentagon accounts to get around lawmakers opposed to his border wall. Some $3.6 billion of the wall money is coming through Trump’s controversial emergency declaration earlier this year, which permitted him to raid military construction projects such as schools and target ranges to finance the wall.
“There is a line here that I believe has been overstepped,” said GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. “It is in this committee that we determine what the appropriation level will be for the wall.”
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said the border wall is a “gross waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Tuesday’s legislation also would fund 52,000 detention beds for immigrants entering the country illegally, a panel aide said, which is higher than current funding but is roughly equal to the levels presently permitted after the Trump administration used transfer powers to finance additional beds.