Construction of the southern border wall was one of the main goals of the Trump administration, but riddled with difficulties in both funding and in the actual construction of the wall, Trump left the project largely unfinished.
Before Trump took office, the US southern border with Mexico already had approximately 654 miles of various fencing erected from past administrations. By the end of Trump’s term the administration claimed to have constructed over 400 miles of border wall, however, only 80 miles of the construction was built in new areas. The majority of the 452 miles was actually reconstructing or replacing previous border barriers.
Through an exercise of emergency powers Former President Trump pulled funding for construction of the wall from a variety of different government departments such as the Department of Homeland Security.
Since Biden has taken over, the administration has made it clear that it will not continue the Trump era project. In the wake of this Texas Governor Abbott chose to continue the construction of the border wall as a state project as well as cracking down on undocumented migrants through his “catch and jail” policy which allows the state to charge illegal crossings as misdemeanors and hold migrants in county jails. Abbott announced such strategies June 10, 2021. In order to pay for his new strategies Abbott signed into law a bill increasing the budget of border security to $1.88 billion, tripling the state’s usual expenditure on border security. This will be used along with the $1.05 billion package the state government promised towards border security in the spring, totalling nearly $3 billion in border security.
Roughly $750 million of the budget will go towards border wall construction with an additional $250 million already allocated as a down payment from this past summer. Abbott plans to use the funds as a starting point to construct 733 miles of barriers. Governor Abbott has also opened up crowdsourcing in order to help cover costs for the border wall, receiving about $54 million in private donations mostly from one donor: Timothy Melon, chair of Pan Am Systems.
On December 18, 2021 Governor Abbott debuted the first stretch of border wall construction by the state of Texas. The debut featured approximately 880 feet of barrier erected in Starr County. Governor Abbott has made immigration a focal point in his campaign for reelection and it appears that he will continue to push border construction in the meantime.