Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said Tuesday the White House will submit to Congress this week its 2020 budget request for $8.6 billion to build an additional 300 miles of border fence, though it’s not clear how much would be replacement barrier and how much would be new.
“The Southwest Border still lacks a permanent wall and persistent domain awareness in vulnerable areas. The FY 2020 Budget requests $8.6 billion in DHS and DOD funding for the construction of approximately 300 miles of new border wall system,” according to McAleenan’s prepared remarks at a House Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday.
The ask would be, by far, the largest amount of money Congress has given DHS for physical improvements at the U.S.-Mexico border. In the previous three years of appropriations, Congress has given DHS a total of $3 billion. In 2017, lawmakers gave the department $341 million for 40 miles of barrier construction. That number jumped in 2018 and 2019 to $1.375 billion each year.
The $8.6 billion would be in addition to $6.6 billion President Trump attempted to redirect from non-DHS departments’ 2019 budgets to border wall construction earlier this year.
The White House budget asked for $51.7 billion in net discretionary funding for DHS.
[Read more: Trump has put up 39 miles of wall on 2,000-mile border despite claims of more]
The recently appointed temporary DHS chief said he also plans to ask Congress for an extra $500 million to support the department’s response at the southern border, where a record-high number of immigrant families continue to arrive each month.
McAleenan said the department expects to “exhaust our resources” by Sept. 30, the end of the 2019 fiscal year. McAleenan, who most recently led U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said he will send lawmakers the request this week.
The additional $500 million, McAleenan said, will go toward putting up temporary and semipermanent “soft-siding” — or tent-like — facilities on the southern border. The facilities would likely be used to hold immigrant families going through asylum proceedings.
[Related: Trump orders changes to the asylum system in memo]
The Trump administration legally cannot old families for more than 20 days due to a 2015 court ruling in the Flores settlement and has had to release onto the street hundreds of thousands of family units since October.
The temporary facilities could allow families to be held together while their cases are rushed through the immigration court system.
The $500 million is not believed to be an extension of $200 million in humanitarian money lawmakers gave DHS in February to end the partial government shutdown, a congressional aide told the Washington Examiner Tuesday evening.
In February, Congress gave DHS $128 million for medical staff at CBP, $40 million for food, formula, and diapers, and $24 million to help with transportation costs of migrants while in Border Patrol custody.
It’s not clear how CBP has spent the $200 million or how much of it has left.
