Published
4 years agoon
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s Republican allies controlling the Senate are awarding him his full $5 billion request to build about 200 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The wall money is contained in a $71 billion draft funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that cleared its first, easiest hurdle in a Senate panel on Tuesday. Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., announced the $5 billion figure.
The money faces an uphill slog. It’s sure to provoke a filibuster by Senate Democrats and is a non-starter with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. 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.
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.
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.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said the border wall is a “gross waste of taxpayer dollars.”
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