When will border wall construction begin? 'End of summer,' Homeland Security chief says
The timeline generally reflects what others in the administration have said since President Donald Trump signed his January order on immigration enforcement.
In the ongoing question of when President Trump's signature border wall will be built, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has set the most recent goal, declaring that construction will begin "by the end of the summer."
Kelly made his remarks in a TV interview during a border trip in which he and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also invoked wartime imagery of a "beachhead" against cartels in El Paso and visited San Diego to warn against "sanctuary city" policies.
"We hope to begin construction by the end of the summer," Kelly told CNN's Kate Bolduan during an interview Friday. "Clearly, we're not going to build a wall in an afternoon."
Kelly's timeline generally reflects what others in the administration have said since President Donald Trump signed his January order to “immediately plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border.’’ The wall was a key Trump campaign promise and a rallying cry for his supporters.
The Department of Homeland Security is currently reviewing design proposals for prototypes, of which an unspecified number will be built near San Diego. Once the designs are selected and built, prototype testing is expected to take between three and four months.
Experts have called the time line surprisingly tight, and the process has already encountered some minor delays. It also has sparked at least one lawsuit.
While the administration can start construction once it settles on a design and contractors, it will need approval from Congress to fund a nearly 2,000-mile structure on the U.S-Mexico border. Cost estimates vary widely, but one internal Department of Homeland Secretary document put it at $21.6 billion, and said it would require up to three and a half years to complete.
Sessions, who joined Kelly on the border tour, was optimistic about funding the project.
"I think Congress will provide the necessary funds and there will be ways to fund this wall," he told CNN on Friday.