SLSCO receives $61.4M for border wall construction

I do understand the man camps but it is additional cost. I know they can build anywhere but the cost will be more in the more remote areas. When people look at the costs I don’t think they realize what is involved.

Even in the most remote rugged areas the cost of securing the border will save tremendous amounts of money and so many lives. Worth every penny and unimaginable to me that this was not done decades ago.

The entire border needs to have a wall, in areas that is deemed not possible for some reason the security needs to be there. We do have to secure this border.

Thank you so much for your updates!

Okay, thank you. Very interesting explanation. So much so I’ve carefully read it thru several times now and as a result feel MUCH better about those “short” segments of wall.

Boy, I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime, and am now beginning to realize with a great deal of pleasure all the marvelous ways it’s going to transform life in America. Trump did it, he really did it! (Well, we’re not quite all the way there yet, but we’re so close!)

“Trump did it, he really did it!”

Few people realize that yet in the general public, but its true.

Rather than say “Build a 20 foot wall from the Pacific to the Gulf”, he instead had top flight professionals carefully analyze what the most effective solution would be.

Five days after his inauguration, he signed Executive Order 13767 (obviously having been prepared far in advance). It directed DHS to begin building wall, but to also develop a comprehensive plan, to achieve full operational control of the Southern Border.

That plan was a pretty massive analytic effort, carefully scrutinizing and prioritizing each unique segment of that border, and painstakingly calculating the full mix of features (infrastructure, technology and people) required to fully control that segment, as well as conducting economic tradeoff analysis to minimize the lifecycle cost required. The budget analysts at OMB in the Executive Branch, and CBO in the Legislative, hit it with every objection and “what if” they could dream up. A six month effort dragged into almost two years, but Congress finally accepted the Comprehensive Plan as complete and correct, in December of 2018.

The Trump Administration in the meantime, aggressively prepared the long lead time actions that would be required for the Federal Contracting process and land acquisition, as well as the high profile prototyping study (and less well publicized technology evaluations), to support a more effective design and contract specifications.

So the Government knew precisely what, why, how, where and in what in order things needed to be built, to get the best bang for the buck, before the main spending would occur. In 2017, only $400 million was appropriated for wall building. This year, thirty times as much ($12 billion) has been identified to put on contract.

Significantly, that amount of money itself is a carefully analyzed quantity, precisely driven by the requirements identified in the Comprehensive Plan - it is all the money required to build all the barrier identified in the Plan. For next year’s budget, the Administration is no longer requesting the big plus ups that it has every other year, because they recognize that the job is paid for by this year’s financing.

When you say that Trump did it, it is really the whole effort to secure that Southern Border, that he has strategically accomplished. There are three big things the Government must do:

1. Define the requirements and specs. Check.
2. Get the money. Check.
3. Contract for the work. That is the remaining challenge, but there is time to do it this year.

About $6 billion has been awarded so far (FY17, 18 and 19 combined), and there is about $12 billion to award during this Fiscal Year. That $18 billion is essentially the whole bill for the barrier in the Comprehensive Plan (1,100 miles).

Early estimates were that it would cost $20-25 billion and take five years, so the Administration seems to be on track to get the job done under budget estimates, and on or ahead of schedule, depending on when you count the real start of the effort (really 2019, when the planning was finished, he declared the emergency and got the money).

Although Contractors will be working feverishly through 2021 to complete their contract deliverables, the Government is well on track to complete is part of the total effort before the November elections. In a very substantial way, getting the money was the real central issue.

It has required a herculean (and kind of genius) effort to overcome the many obstructions of the Left, but it looks like the war to secure the border, has been strategically won.

As you said: Trump did it, he really did it!

It is a multi-year effort, which most people are not carefully watching, and don’t yet appreciate - but it is now mostly already baked into the cake. This year, the full scale deployment of hundreds of miles of Wall System (to the highest priority areas, along with a massive rollout of Technology Programs is really going to start impacting the situation on the ground.

The first 300-400 miles on the priority list, account for well over 80% of the illegal traffic (border cities and the Rio Grande Valley). Except for Laredo, which was funded this year, and will be mostly built next year, the rest of the high traffic areas (including the historically biggest three; an Diego, the Rio Grande Valley and Yuma) will be closed this year, which is going to be an historic event.

“The entire border needs to have a wall, in areas that is deemed not possible for some reason the security needs to be there.”

It seems that they have cracked the code for building in the flats and the flood-prone areas, but are still challenged by the steep mountain segments.

President Trump has shown that he is willing to pay the premiums required for the rural segments, where analysis of the operational data justifies it, but those steep segments still seem to need a design/construction technique breakthrough for building wall system. They do have tech that they can deploy there.

It is a multi-year effort, which most people are not carefully watching, and don’t yet appreciate

I count myself among them were it not for my lucky stars leading me to your posts. I mean I knew it was a very fortunate thing we had a master builder like Trump leading the effort, but only dimly understood the many different ways his experienced hand could put it all together. So I thank you, and I'm going to keep my eye on you, young man! :-)