RIGHT SPEAK: How Trump can build the wall today

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While a caravan of some 1,200 Central American migrants trek toward U.S. ports of entry, Congress continues to block President Trump’s efforts to build his long-promised wall along the southern border.

On page 269 of the 2,232 page spending bill that Congress introduced and passed in just under 48 hours last month, construction efforts along the border are limited to repairing the existing fence; building vehicle barriers (that don’t block pedestrians); constructing small portions of pedestrian fencing; and spending on unmanned aerial drones (which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has already deemed completely ineffective at border patrol). Congress also blatantly blocks using any of the $1.6 billion of border funding in the omnibus for the wall prototypes that Trump has been testing.

So what, if anything, can Trump do to build his wall? Existing law provides three clear options.

The first is in Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), a law which Congress passed in 1996 and has subsequently amended several times. The law, codified here, gives DHS a clear mandate to construct reinforced fencing along at least 700 miles of the 1,933-mile land border with Mexico.

Specifically, IIRIRA requires barriers to be built in areas of “high illegal entry” to the United States, and grants the Secretary of Homeland Security the ability to waive “all legal requirements” that may impede this construction.

According to one expert analysis, “nothing in current statute would appear to bar DHS from installing hundreds of miles of additional physical barriers … even beyond the 700 miles required by law.”