The law says the secretary of defense may provide assistance to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “for purposes of increasing ongoing efforts to secure the southern land border of the United States,” which includes the “construction of roads and fences, and the installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.”
“If you look it up in the dictionary, the word ‘fence’ includes the word ‘barrier’ and the word ‘barrier’ includes walls made of a variety of different materials,” Brooks said. “You’ve mentioned military forces along the southern border, have any of them been deployed pursuant to 10 U.S. Code § 284?”
He declined to estimate how much it might cost the department were the Army Corps of Engineer to build the wall, saying the cost would depend on what is in the national emergency declaration.
His comments come days after the government went into partial shutdown over the lack of funding in the budget for the Department of Homeland Security for a border barrier.
Trump has requested $5.7 billion for a steel wall over 200 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Congressional Democratic leadership has called the wall “ineffective” and “immoral,” and has so far refused to allocate any funding for it, even after Trump met their request to end the 35-day shutdown—the longest in U.S. history.
“We don’t agree on some of the specifics of border security. Democrats are firmly against the wall,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said hours after Trump ended the shutdown. “But we agree on many things, such as the need for drug inspection technology, humanitarian aid, strengthening security at our ports of entry, and that bodes well for finding an eventual agreement.”
Members of Congress now have 17 days to come up with a bill to fund DHS that Trump will be willing to sign. If they don’t, Trump has threatened to call a national emergency or put the government into a partial shutdown again.
As recently as last Jan. 25, Trump expressed optimism that he could reach a compromise with Congressional Democrats, although he has remained firm on the need for a wall.
