https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/30/border-wall-immigration-mcaleenan-1076887
POLITICO
IMMIGRATION
“Border money would fund 'not just
a dumb barrier,” says border chief KEVIN McALEENAN
By QUINT FORGEY 12/30/2018 11:20 AM EST
President Donald Trump’s border chief elaborated Sunday on how immigration officials would spend the roughly $5 billion the White House is requesting from Congress for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico frontier — insisting the taxpayer dollars would fund “not just a dumb barrier.”
“It's about 215 miles of wall system,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said on ABC’s “This Week,” including in his calculations various auxiliary technologies to bolster enforcement efforts.
“What we’re talking about is not just a dumb barrier,” McAleenan said. “We’re talking about sensors, cameras, lighting, access roads for our agents, a system that helps us secure that area of the border. That’s what we were asking Congress.”
Border officials have already constructed a barrier along 35 of the 40 miles of wall funded by $300 million from the president’s fiscal 2017 budget, McAleenan said — “a record time for a major government procurement of this nature,” he added.
And Customs and Border Protection is “already on contract and launching construction” for the portions of the wall financed through the administration’s fiscal 2018 budget, McAleenan said.
IMMIGRATION
Border chief: Agents 'did everything they could' to prevent child migrants' deaths
By QUINT FORGEY
McAleenan also defended the efficacy of the proposal that has plunged the government into a more-than weeklong shutdown and a bitter, partisan funding fight.
“We need a barrier to help us stop that, to push into — the traffic into areas that we can control more effectively,” McAleenan said, citing mass entries and an influx of narcotics along the southern border.