The 2,232 page Omnibus bill includes a specific clause barring funding for a wall on the southern border that mirrors the new prototypes already there.
The bill reads:
The amounts designated in subsection (a)(2) through (a)(4) shall only be available for operationally effective designs deployed as of the date of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, (Public Law 115–31), such as currently deployed steel bollard designs, that prioritize agent safety.
The clause allows Democrats to say that the bill does not fund Trump’s wall, and allows Republicans claiming that border security funding includes funding for a “wall system.” Speaker Paul Ryan’s office issued talking points praising the funding for “95 miles of border wall system.”
The funding will be primarily used for border fencing and “bollard” fencing.
Here is a list of what the omnibus bill plans to spend on the following border security projects:
- $251,000,000 for approximately 14 miles of secondary fencing, all of which provides for cross- barrier visual situational awareness, on the southwest border in the San Diego Sector.
- $445,000,000 for 25 miles of primary pedestrian levee fencing along the southwest border in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
- $196,000,000 for primary pedestrian fencing along the southwest border in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
- $445,000,000 for replacement of existing primary pedestrian fencing along the southwest border.
The bill also includes $196,000,000 for deployment of border security technology and $38,000,000 for border barrier planning and design.