“What is the final length going to be?”
Bottom Line: About half of the border will have the new (bollard-based) Wall System - very roughly around 1,000 miles. All of the Border will have the new Technology Programs - every mile, barrier or not.
The Comprehensive Plan for Full Operational Control of the Southern Border reportedly called for $25 billion over five years, 1,100 miles of effective barrier, thousands more full time positions and several Technology Programs.
The Southern Border is 1,954 miles long.
It is unclear how secondary (Double barrier) miles are counted. I think it likely that one mile of border with a double barrier, is counted as two miles of barrier. It seems like there might be 100-200 miles like that (e.g. San Diego and Yuma).
Also, 221 miles of pre-existing barrier was assessed as operationally effective. If you add that to the 738 that is currently being reported on the weekly slides (that is, for those specific miles for which funding has already been transferred into the Border Wall account), that brings us to 959 miles of barrier.
There is another $3.6 billion in Military Construction money that has been identified for the wall, but not yet transferred. That could easily pay for 141 more miles, to bring the total to 1,100 miles, which is my best guess for the final length, based on the reports I’ve seen. Again, that would be miles of barrier, rather than miles of border, as some tough places will get double barrier.
Since the Border Wall System segments have been carefully prioritized, and the first 300-400 miles account for so much of the current illegal traffic, when you get to last 100-200 miles on the priority list, you are really looking at marginal potential alternative routes, where not much currently crosses. It is quite possible that they might decide to just plug those areas with more technology and personnel, rather than incur the pain of having to pull that last $3.6 billion away from other projects for the last 140 or so miles. We’ll have to see how things shake out in the end.
Another Bottom Line: We are on track for a dramatically improved Border Security situation by the end of this year, and approaching full operational control of the Southern Border by the end of next year (2021), assuming President Trump is re-elected.
Thanks!