Posted on 09/03/2019 3:27:43 PM PDT by BeauBo
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has authorized the use of $3.6 billion in military construction funds for 11 wall projects on the southern border with Mexico, according to defense officials and a letter from Esper to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has been obtained by CNN.
In his letter, Esper told Congress he has "determined that 11 military construction projects along the international border with Mexico, with an estimated total cost of $3.6 billion, are necessary to support the use of the armed forces in connection with the national emergency."
The announcement fulfills a promise made by President Donald Trump in February to tap military construction funds to build his border wall. The move was slammed by Congress when it was first announced and only recently completed a Pentagon legal review.
Defense Department officials say 127 military construction projects are being put on hold in order to use the $3.6 billion to fund building 175 miles of southern border wall.
Construction is expected to begin in about 135 days according to Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller Elaine McCusker.
According to chief Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman, half the money is coming from deferred projects overseas, and the other half were planned for projects in the US.
Though it's unclear which military construction would be put on hold, the move could put at risk projects such as command and control, drone, cyber and training facilities in the US and overseas.
White House officials have held talks in the last weeks to begin planning for the move, two administration officials said, which would shift funds from the Department of Defense's military construction budget to fund the border wall.
The move would rely on Trump's February emergency declaration, which has faced stiff legal challenges.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
He has declared an emergency
Now is the time that we need to fight for the right to protect our country
The dems will fight tooth and nail to keep the borders open
We need to fight harder than they do.
Are you in?
Haha, that is very, very funny.
Bookmarked.
This is the same type of blackmail they use when state budgets are reduced.
They always mention police, fire, libraries, as the first to be cut. They make a big deal over it.
People often sucker for it.
No leftist programs are cut, and you can take that to the bank.
I looked to see where the Secretary of Defense authorized new barrier, and the list is at the end of his memo, found here: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000016c-f94d-dc65-af6f-fbcfc03c0000
This is mostly rural barrier, except around Andrade/Yuma, Calexico and Tecate.
Arizona - 68 more miles (31 is secondary barrier on Goldwater Range)
California - 20 more miles (Calexico and Tecate get secondary barrier, San Diego’s barriers extend about two miles further East, into the mountains)
New Mexico - 30 more miles
Texas - 52 miles North from outside of Laredo
Arizona is basically getting continuous wall all the way from California to the Western edge of the Tohono O’odham Reservation, with 31 miles of double barrier in the Air Force’s Barry Goldwater Range. Tohono O’odham is getting complete persistent surveillance coverage by Integrated Fixed Towers (AKA “Virtual Wall”), and about 20 miles of New barrier picks up on the East of Tohono O’odham (Sasabe). 63 miles were recently started in Arizona, with separate DoD (Counter-Narcotics) funds.
The 46 miles going into New Mexico from El Paso is getting 13 miles longer, extending 33 miles West of the Columbus Port of Entry. Also three miles on either side of Antelope Wells POE, and about five more miles near the Arizona border. About 80 miles out of New Mexico’s 180 mile border.
52 miles, running North from outside of Laredo, Texas.
Laredo is the biggest city on the border without significant barrier, and likely to catch the diverted flows from the Rio Grade Valley barrier building already announced. I guess they anticipate that Laredo itself, and its Southern Flank toward Falcon Lake will be funded in the 2020 appropriation.
Texas really needs a couple of hundred more miles through Laredo Eagle pass and Del Rio.
“$20.5 million per mile?”
Just like with the Counter-Narcotics funds that DoD has recently been spending, I believe we will see them get better prices than they initially reserve funds. They will likely come back around later to contract for more miles with the leftover money.
That is a very conservative cost estimate ($20 mil/mile). They are steering wide, to stay safe of the Anti-Deficiency Act, where Federal officials can be held criminally liable for overspending their appropriated funds.
I would not be surprised to see them end up contracting for an additional 100 miles eventually, out of those same funds, once prices are locked in on the earlier contracts.
Oops, I forgot to count that first 20 miles in New Mexico (Santa Teresa POE) built with the 2017 appropriation.
New Mexico is now on track to get 100 miles of Trump-style super barrier, out of its 180 mile border with Mexico.
“the largest concentration of illegal immigrants, cross in a relatively few areas (San Diego, Yuma, parts of the Rio Grande)”
San Diego is wrapping up its new Super Barrier - should be done in January (Primary is complete, Secondary about half done). This new funding is going to push them two miles further East up into the mountains, where there was nothing before.
Yuma is getting so much barrier, I am having a hard time tracking it all. Everything I recall seeing going in there is thirty feet tall, and I think at this point it may be completely continuous Trump-style Super Barrier through the whole of Yuma Sector - not just the urban area.
The Rio Grande Valley is looking at 95 new miles or more with the funding in hand - enough to substantially close it down (South of Falcon Lake to East of Brownsville), when agents and technology focus on the remaining few open miles. Five contracts have already been awarded there for about 32 miles. After the extended public comment period closes this month, we can expect a rain of contract awards to follow. Next year, the Valley should be a beehive of construction activity.
Thank you! I cheer every mile, especially here in NM.
So too, the wall is being built first in the areas of highest illegal entry.
The guy putting together that page has a great idea, but a critical flaw in execution.
He is going by the project percentage complete, and multiplying it by the number of miles in the project - resulting in about a 50% inflation in his total “miles built”. He reports 89 miles done, but CBP’s most recent report was 60.
For example, the 63 mile project in Arizona, that started in Organ Pipe last month, only plans to complete two miles by October 1st. But since the project is reported as 43% complete, he estimates that 27 miles are done.
That is because the total schedule and work breakdown for a construction project includes other major tasks, like surveys, designs, environmental reviews, land acquisition, staffing, training, materials staging, clearing and grading and such; before construction starts.
A lot of work has to be done, and money spent, before the first bollard panel is erected.
Hopefully things will tighten up around Nogales. Rio Rico (due N.) is where Agent Brian Terry murdered. Many bad things have happened near Nogales.
It's NOT "HIS" Wall, it may be his proposal, but it's America's wall. These lame journalists can't ever write a correct headline.
Thanks.
“the wall is being built first in the areas of highest illegal entry.”
DoD’s priorities are a bit different than DHS for building barrier, because they are complying with different laws.
DoD’s Counter-Narcotics funds ($2.5 billion) are prioritized against the heaviest drug smuggling corridors.
DoD’s Military Construction funds ($3.6 billion) must support the mission of the Armed Forces (which in this case, is support to DHS - but focused on the missions the Military is tasked with to do that - which do not include Law Enforcement itself, because of the Posse Comitatus Act).
Even DHS itself, has multiple criteria that influence priority (human traffic, drug traffic, attacks on officers, terrorist threats, etc.).
A lot of the criteria overlap, in the areas where crossing is the easiest - near the border cities and Rio Grande Valley. For example, DoD money will largely button up the Yuma Sector, which has been a major corridor for illegal immigration.
Some of the criteria don’t overlap though. In terms of illegal immigration, the 31 miles of secondary barrier in the Goldwater Test Range in Arizona (just funded by DoD) will do less than 31 miles through the city of Laredo, Texas (still unfunded).
It is not wasted by any means - all of the DoD spending will be on areas included in the DHS comprehensive plan for full operational control of the border - but even after DoD builds this barrier, we are still going to have some areas of high illegal immigration potential to address. Especially in Texas.
Arizona and New Mexico are by far the biggest beneficiaries of the DoD spending this year. Those States are getting about half of their total border with Mexico solidly walled off, and their new wall locations strongly coincide with their illegal immigrant flows. California does really well also, by such measures.
Texas is benefiting from their appropriations a LOT more than from DoD money. The Rio Grande Valley (where over 40% of the illegal immigrants coming across the whole of the Southern Border cross), is largely going to get done with the 2018 and 2019 appropriations from Congress.
As we button up the high traffic areas for illegal immigrants, they will shift down the road further out of town, until they start hitting some physical limits, where it challenges the average person. That’s what drives the 1,100 miles in the comprehensive plan. Beyond that, the walk becomes a test that inherently weeds out a significant number, and/or the ample terrain makes detection and interception like shooting fish in a barrel.
What’s funded now, is going to transform local security in a lot of areas, greatly disrupt existing flows, and outside of Texas, generally make the crossing into a much more rugged physical challenge. If we keep up this pace of construction, about two years into a second Trump term, total illegal immigration across the Southern border will actually be getting physically choked off by barrier and terrain.
A lot of the same cost drivers as the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The private ownership of the land, the International Treaty governing construction which could impact floodwaters, the additional land left in the floodplain when you need to build the barrier on levees, and the shifting path/erosion of the river. As we continue upriver, hurricanes become less of a threat though.
Nonetheless, I think that we will see something like a 20% lower actual cost vs. what they have budgeted. We likely still face the need for a good bit of $20 million per mile barrier in Texas, beyond this year's projects.
"Many bad things have happened near Nogales."
Nogales got some of the earliest bollard barrier, before the Obama Administration, because of that. President Trump's Military deployment to the border has included adding concertina there, which significantly hardens them to ladder and rope attacks.
Nogales:
Mayor of Nogales is raising nine kinds of hell over that razor wire. LOL!
the escapes we had with concertina were with double thick blankets (old wool Navy style) thrown over the top. Were favored the inward (Towards Mexico) curved fence and none of our staff or inmates could get over it.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=curved+prison+fences&t=osx&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
I absolutely adore this president! Leaders like this are once in a lifetime, at best.
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