President Trump issued an executive order today for the Department of Homeland Security to begin building The Wall along the United States border with Mexico. Trump said on ABC News today that he will require Mexico to pay for the structure, but he remained unclear as to how he would force that country to do so. “I’m just telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form,” he said on ABC.
At a speech at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this afternoon, Trump said that he had ordered the department to begin building the wall immediately. He also said he would triple the number of ICE officers and increase the size of the Border Patrol by 5,000.
All of these promised actions will require significant additional resources, which must be appropriated by Congress. The building process itself may commence using existing DHS construction funds but will need to be incorporated into the next Federal Budget if it is to progress beyond the press event stage.
