These Are The 11 Border Projects Getting Funds Intended For Military Construction

Speaker 1: 00:00 Democrats are angry over the Trump administration's move to shift three point $6 billion in military construction projects to build sections of wall along the Mexico border of 11 wall projects. Plan for construction with diverted funds, eight are in the San Diego, El Centro and Yuma sectors. Joining me via Skype is politico reporter Jacqueline Felcher who's covering this developing story today. Welcome to midday edition. Thanks for having me. We'll start with the scope of this announcement from Defense Secretary Mark Esper. How much wall are we talking about? Speaker 2: 00:34 Uh, I'm actually not sure about about the length of wall. We've really been covering sort of that the military construction projects that are going to be funded there are going to be defunded to be able to cover this. It's 127 military projects both in the u s and internationally that are going to be at least temporarily unfunded to pay to either build new structures of wall or replaced the sections of walls that are there and need an update. Speaker 1: 00:57 I think I had read the reporting was about 175 of miles total of course. I guess that could change. What does the Defense Secretary Esper, what does he say, how this will improve border enforcement? Speaker 2: 01:09 So the, the Pentagon's theory about this is that the sections where there currently isn't wall need to be patrolled by people and either building new sections of wall or improving barricades that are already there by, by making them higher, a more secure in some way will eliminate the need for troops to, to be down there. The hope is that some of the troops who are currently deployed down there will be able to go home and it will also force migrants trying to enter the u s to enter at specific checkpoints that the Department of Homeland Security has man versus coming across the border at, at other areas that will sort of force them to go through areas where there are currently people who can help them get into the country. Speaker 1: 01:50 Alright. And you mentioned 127 projects that they're going to be taking money from. As I understand that those are going to be specifically announced today. They're trying to notify congressional representatives about which ones are in whose districts. But how was it decided which projects would be delayed? Speaker 2: 02:07 Yes, the notification, the notifications are are currently ongoing. We're seeing congressional offices as they get notified, summer releasing, which projects will be impacted it and some are not. A full list will be out later today. The way the pending on decided this was to look at readiness concerns. They obviously didn't want to touch things that are gonna impact troop readiness and they also are not impacting a barracks or family housing. So the places that troops live will not, you know, be, be left in disrepair because of this. And they also didn't want to touch awards that were going to be made very soon. So anything that was expected to be awarded in fiscal 2019 over about the next month is also not going to be part of this. So it's both readiness concerns and sort of dealing with things that are a little bit further out in the hopes that Congress will, will backfill this money. And these projects will actually still end up happening in the long run. Speaker 1: 03:02 And of course time will tell if that happens. Congress last year denied Trump's requests for funding for construction on his border wall. Remind us of how the administration is attempting to go around Congress and his decision to block funds for the wall. Speaker 2: 03:15 So the administration has declared a national emergency at the border and they're using that. They're attempting to use the these military construction funds. So this is money that was slated to improve infrastructure on bases that that type of thing. They're saying that because there's a national security crisis at the border, they can use this money to to help build the border wall and pressed on this during a briefing. It depending on, yesterday the Defense Department's top spokesman just said that this is, this has been decided that it's lawful. Lots of lawyers have looked at it and decided that this is a correct way to use the money and really wouldn't talk at all about what sort of precedent this sets for using military money for, for any sort of project where the administration decides to deploy troops. Speaker 1: 04:01 And what's been the reaction of Democrats to this announcement? Speaker 2: 04:04 There has been just widespread outrage about, you know, the president president overstepping the fact that, you know, they all alleged that the president is essentially robbing from the troops and the taxpayers to find this wall that, that Congress would not find. And there's also, Ken put some Republicans in, in a tight spot if a Republican is, you know, on the Armed Services Committee, supportive of the troops living in, you know, a district that might be impacted by the wall, they're going to have to really walk a fine line between supporting the wall and supporting the troops who are potentially not getting needed updates to pay for that. Speaker 1: 04:42 Yeah. So that is a tight spot for even some Republicans. What can Democrats do to fight this move by the administration? Speaker 2: 04:48 We, we've seen a lot of letters so far. Um, a lot of questions about sort of how these decisions were made. Um, I, I mean I expect we'll see a lot more coming days, potentially hearings hearings on the subject. And of course, you know, in 2020 congress will be able to, to pass appropriations bills that again, either fund to this or, or don't fund it. Speaker 1: 05:07 And there's a lawsuit in California already over this issue. The American civil liberties unions are ready to file an update on that, right? Speaker 2: 05:14 Yes. The HCLU did say yesterday that they are planning to file a motion to block the transfer of this money, basically pointing out that it's been months since the Trump administration announced this. Can you really say it's that much of an emergency if it's lasted months without this money? Is, is their argument according to the statement they released yesterday? Speaker 1: 05:36 Alright. And we'll see how that lawsuit plays out. Well, I've been speaking with political reporter, Jaclyn Felcher. Thanks very much. Thank you. Speaker 3: 05:47 [inaudible].