The price tag for President Donald Trump’s border wall has become the most expensive barrier of its kind anywhere in the world, NPR reported.
According to the news outlet, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is overseeing wall construction, said in a status report last week that $11 billion has been identified since Trump took office to construct 576 miles of a new "border wall system."
But the Trump administration is seeking more funding. The Department of Homeland Security has asked the Defense Department to come up with money for 270 additional miles of border wall that DHS says is needed to block drug smuggling routes on federal land. The Pentagon is studying the request, whose price hasn’t been announced yet.
If the Trump administration completes all its wall projects, three-quarters of the southern border would be walled off from Mexico, NPR reported. The government inherited about 650 miles of border structures erected under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Trump bragged at a Milwaukee rally the wall is “going up at a record speed, and we are fully financed now, isn't that nice?"
NPR reported Trump's wall costs $20 million a mile. The overall cost of $11 billion is approaching the price of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
But Customs and Border Protection spokesman Christian Alvarez told the news outlet there's more to Trump's barrier.
"The border wall system will include a 150-foot enforcement zone, lighting, cameras, other technology, and most importantly an all-weather access road making it easier to respond to (undocumented immigrant) traffic," Alvarez said. "So it's not just gonna be the barrier itself."
Reece Jones, a geographer at the University of Hawaii, told NPR the cost per mile “is four times as much as the most expensive other walls being built.”
There are at least 60 around the world, with Israel's wall on the West Bank the second most expensive — at $1 million to $5 million a mile, NPR reported.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.