Revised Spending Bill: $5.7B for No-Strings-Attached Border Wall Funding

The revised House spending bill to continue funding the federal government for the next two months has an added provision that funds $5.7 billion worth of border wall construction without any contingencies.

A copy of the spending bill obtained by Breitbart News reveals that unlike the omnibus spending bill — signed by President Trump in March — funding for a proposed border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border does not come with a slew of restrictions.

The $5.7 billion in funding is appropriated in the revised spending bill specifically for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to construct and improve existing barriers at the southern border. This funding would be available through 2023.

This border wall funding is a stark break from the Republican-controlled Congress’s approach of restricting Trump’s authority over border barrier construction.

For example, the omnibus spending bill, while funding $1.6 billion of border projects, restricted the Trump administration to only build new barriers that are nearly identical to the bollard fencing that President Obama built in portions of New Mexico during his tenure.

The omnibus spending bill effectively banned Trump from using the funding to build a border wall using any of the prototype border walls that were constructed and tested by federal immigration officials earlier this year in the San Diego, California desert.

This has left the Trump administration relegated to building only 18 to 30-feet high bollard fencing, as Breitbart News reported.

Conversely, this $5.7 billion in border wall funding gives the Trump administration free rein to choose which barriers DHS wants to build at the southern border. The spending bill must be approved by both the House and Senate.

The spending battle is set against a backdrop in which llegal immigration to the country has soared to record levels over the past two months. In November 2018, there were close to 52,000 border crossings on the southern border, alone, marking the highest level of illegal immigration in the month of November since 2006. Projections indicate that illegal immigration for next year will reach 600,000 border crossings, the highest level of illegal immigration in more than a decade.