The border wall he depicted is actually a replacement for an existing wall built in the 90s.
President Trump on Wednesday tweeted that he had been briefed about "the start of our Southern Border WALL" and included pictures of what of said depicted construction for the project, but there was one slight problem with the announcement.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
The project, which started in 2009, will replace a 2.25-mile section in the California-Mexico border wall, according to a statement last month from US Customs and Border Protection.
The original wall in that section, built in the 1990s, had been built from recycled metal scraps and old landing mat, the agency said.
"Although the existing wall has proven effective at deterring unlawful cross border activity, smuggling organizations damaged and breached this outdated version of a border wall several hundred times during the last two years," CBP said.
The project will replacing the old wall with a 30-foot high bollard style structure.
A DHS official told BuzzFeed News that Trump did meet with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan on Wednesday afternoon, but did not provide details of the briefing.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump's tweet, or his briefing with DHS officials.
Building a wall along the southern border has been a key promise from Trump, one which he has assured would be paid for by Mexico.
However, the Department of Homeland Security is still evaluating prototypes for construction of that wall and no new sections have been built, said Carlos Diaz, a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection.
Funding for the wall, which Mexico has repeatedly and vehemently rejected to paying for, has also hit a snag for the Trump administration.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that Trump has suggested paying for the wall through the US military budget.
Trump's inability to fund the wall has rankled some of his supporters, some of whom also pointed out Wednesday that the pictures he tweeted were not of new construction on the border.
The tweet also seemed to have irritated Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime, an Arizona-based advocacy group for victims of crimes perpetuated by undocumented immigrants, which supported Trump during his presidential campaign and appeared with him at some of his campaign rallies.
In a blistering open letter to Trump Wednesday, the group blasted him on the lack of construction of the wall, and his signing of the omnibus spending bill.
"With a stroke of a pen you made it worse," the statement read. "Money for 'the wall'? Not a dime but maybe you can build a 'beautiful' picket fence."
from BuzzFeed - USNews https://ift.tt/2Gn3Z3u
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