Brian Kolfage, the Air Force triple amputee veteran who founded a non-profit organization to build the wall at the southern United States border with private donations, said he expects to break ground in the next couple of months.
Kolfage told Breitbart News in an exclusive phone interview on Thursday, “We’re moving forward with the wall. I’ve got some land owners who are ready to rock and roll, and want us to start slapping up some wall.”
“We should be able to break ground in the next couple of months, we hope, according to our experts,” he said.
Kolfage founded We Build The Wall, Inc. earlier this month, after raising more than $21 million dollars on GoFundMe.
The group plans to build the wall by working with individual private land owners who welcome a wall on their properties, and with local construction companies who can build it.
Kolfage said their wall will supplement President Trump’s plan to build a physical barrier along 238 miles of the border in strategic locations.
“That’s not a lot, so we’re going to match what they’re doing, and we’re going to build another 238 miles,” he said. “We’re going to work alongside them and get the other part done.”
Kolfage said the government is currently paying $18 or $19 million for every mile of bollard steel fencing. He said he thinks it can be done privately for less than $3 million per mile.
He said his group’s construction committee will build the wall according to the government’s request for proposal (RFP), so that their wall will meet its specifications.
He said once they finalize the wall plan, they will hire local construction firms to build the wall. Some companies are willing to build the wall for free, except for the labor costs, he said.
“We’ll be employing American companies to do the whole thing,” he said.
Kolfage said they have been keeping the White House informed of their work through one of their board members, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Kobach told the New York Times last week that the president has personally blessed the effort.
Asked what materials they are considering using for the wall, Kolfage said, “We’re looking at every option, but we’re also going to do whatever the border patrol wants … whatever works for them.”
”We don’t want to be slapping up a wall and have it be mismatched,” he said. “What we’ve been learning is that … what’s needed in one area could be different from what’s needed in the next area.”
“If there’s a region with more tunneling going on, there might be technology for anti-tunneling detection.”
Kolfage said a visit to the border in Texas over the last week has reaffirmed his mission to build the wall. “We saw like 40 people come across the border,” he said. “Uncontested, just strolling into the country.”
He said he also got intelligence briefings on the drug cartels in the area. “Their primary focus is human smuggling.”
He said the drug cartels will smuggle people across the border for as much as $15,000, and if they are not repaid, they threaten to kill their families.
“It’s an endless cycle and having these open borders is funding these cartels, whether people want to believe it or not,” he said. “It’s not about them being refugees — it’s a criminal enterprise and our policies are enabling it.”
He said he also met with “Angel Parents,” such as Mary Ann Mendoza, whose children were killed by illegal immigrants.
“That solifies why we are doing this, and why we’re taking this action to at least show our nation that we can start building the wall,” he said.
“When you’re face-to-face, and they’re describing how an illegal alien killed their son, and hearing that tragic story about how they got a call in the middle of the night about their son’s death. How could any American just ignore what’s going on?”
Kolfage said he has been working non-stop since his GoFundMe campaign went viral.
“Twelve hours a day — I mean, I don’t think I’ve had a day off. Our whole team is the same thing — we’re just go, go, go. We need to get it done and get things moving, and show the American people that we can do this.”
“We’re just going completely fast and furious on this, and busting our butts because that’s what we need to do, and I think that government should be doing the exact same thing.”
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