I wonder if any of the Democrats who previously insisted that the crisis at the southern border was a fantasy fabricated by Donald Trump but now think it’s the Worst Thing Ever will be interested in this news? Despite the best efforts of Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats to stop it, construction of the border wall continues. I wasn’t even aware of the last bits of new construction until I heard about it from Brian Cates on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/drawandstrike/status/1153255583174340610

Sure enough, it was a press release from the Border Patrol. As it turns out, several new bits of barrier construction in some of our more porous areas were wrapping up this month with more to come in the future.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has completed construction of approximately 50 miles of new bollard wall projects authorized by funding from fiscal years 2017 and 2018.

Since January 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have received funding to support construction of up to approximately 201-205 miles of new border barriers through a combination of appropriations and the Treasury Forfeiture Fund (TFF). This funding is supporting the top border barrier priorities for the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP).

Once again, the Democrats can stomp their feet until they turn blue in the face and threaten lawsuits to stop it, but this is funding that was already appropriated for this specific purpose. The first pot of money consists of $341 million appropriated in 2017 for roughly 40 miles of new Bollard Wall and gates for high priority areas in the San Diego, El Centro, El Paso and Rio Grande Valley regions. CBPP reports that this work is 99% finished.

After that, they will be working on another 80 miles of new border wall that was funded in 2018. Approximately ten miles of that project are complete.

You’ll notice that you’re not hearing much about this on most of the cable news networks. Obviously, it’s not something most of the talking heads want to chat about because it comes off looking like a win for the President. (And we can’t have that, can we?) But now that the Democrats are on board with the idea that there’s a crisis at the border, they should be happy about this, right? Fewer families in cages and all that. Let’s hope so.

Why don’t we close with some nice visuals? Here’s a low-level aerial view of one of the new sections of bollard wall in California. It’s less than a minute long. Enjoy.