Mexico isn't paying for Trump's glorified border fence and we knew they never would, but now we know where the money is coming from.
Acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper has informed members of Congress that the Pentagon plans to pull funding from over 120 military construction projects to cover a portion of Trump's fence.
From Politico:
Defense Secretary Mark Esper informed congressional leaders on Tuesday of the cash grab from a total of 127 military projects. Roughly half the money will come from funds previously dedicated to upgrading military bases abroad and the other half in the United States. [...]
In a letter to Senate Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) on Tuesday, Esper detailed 11 border projects on the U.S.-Mexico border that the diverted funds will now finance.
The barriers, Esper contended, will allow military personnel that have been deployed to the border to beef up security to focus on areas that don't have physical barriers.
"In short, these barriers will allow DoD to provide support to DHS more efficiently and effectively," Esper wrote. "In this respect, the contemplated construction projects are force multipliers."
Military personnel cannot legally engage in law enforcement activity so the idea that fencing will serve as a "force multiplier" is technically true in the sense that military personnel will have even fewer things to do. As you know, service members deployed to the border have stocked shelves, deployed razor wire they were later asked to remove, and cleared brush.
This new plan will reportedly cover up to 175 miles of fencing along the nearly 2,000 mile border, but it's not clear how much of that will actually involve brand-new construction. These numbers include upgrades and replacements for existing structures.
Now that the specifics of the Pentagon's plans for complying with Trump's orders are out of the bag, lawsuits will follow.
What the Trump regime is building on the border doesn't look anything like the prototypes (pictured above) that DHS tested last year. They call it a "border barrier" because it's a metal fence with gaps large enough to slip many things through it, not a solid concrete wall.
This is what it actually looks like:
And it may look familiar because "barriers" exactly like this have been installed on the border since the Bush administration.
President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act into law in 2006 and it funded 700 miles of fencing that was completed in 2011.