The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Mexico never paid for the border wall. But what about the rest of Trump's promises?

2021-01-13T18:22:42.036Z


The outgoing president falsely claimed that he had promised and delivered 450 miles of the border wall, but it is just one of his many lies.


By Jane C. Timm - NBC News

President Donald Trump visited Texas on Tuesday (his first public act since the assault on the Capitol) and claimed that the construction of the border wall has been completed, although it is not true. 

"Unlike those who preceded me,

I kept my promises

and today we celebrate an extraordinary milestone: the completion of the promised 450 miles of the border wall," Trump said in Alamo, Texas, after inspecting a half-mile stretch.

"Nobody realizes how big it is," he added.

The wall, which Trump said Mexico would pay for,

was in the focus of his campaign as a symbol of his

 restrictive

immigration

policies.

In his speeches, Trump showed himself as a builder turned politician, while his supporters shouted at rallies: "Build the wall, build the wall!"

As president, Trump visited the border numerous times to supervise the works: "Nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. And the cost will be very cheap. I will build a great wall on our southern border," Trump said in June 2015.

["Be careful what you wish for": Trump travels to the border and insists it is dangerous to put him on trial]

Experts say that

the barrier is having a great impact

, both on people and the environment.

"The border wall has been just one small piece of a cruel overall border strategy and at the same time it has been successful in blocking migrants, especially asylum seekers," said Denise Gilman, a professor at the Law School of the University of Texas. 

Once in office, however, the president's policies focused almost entirely on 

blocking Central American asylum seekers

, not the Mexican immigrants he talked about so much while he was a candidate, Gilman says.

Trump travels to Texas to oversee border wall

Jan. 12, 202102: 24

Promise: a thousand miles of wall.

Reality: it has not been fulfilled

The president falsely claimed Tuesday that he had promised and delivered 450 miles of the border wall.

In fact, that's less than half of your initial promise.

And

only 47 miles out of 450 miles equate to new structures

where they didn't exist before.

Trump said in 2015 and 2016 that he

expected the border wall to be about 1,000 miles long

, with mountains and rivers creating natural barriers as well.

Most recently, in his 2020 State of the Union address, Trump said that "substantially more than 500 miles" of border wall would be made in early 2021.

[Trump's final week: few allies, no Twitter, and on the brink of impeachment]

A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told NBC News that the Trump Administration has built 453 miles of a new "border wall system," which includes barriers as well as roads for patrols and other policing efforts.

The vast majority replace pedestrian and vehicular fences erected by previous administrations: 

Trump falsely claimed he was building an entirely new border wall

 when in fact he was replacing older fences.

The

Trump

Administration

had built just 47 miles of

border

wall as of January 8

where it didn't exist before.

Former President Barack Obama ended his term with 654 miles of border wall, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office in early 2017. Trump will leave with 701 miles, according to CBP.

The half-mile section Trump visited on Tuesday was brand new, the spokesman said.

They rescue a migrant who was trapped in the fence of the border wall

Oct. 16, 202000: 26

Trump claimed Tuesday that 

another 300 miles are under construction

.

According to CBP, 285 miles are under construction or in the pre-construction phase.

President-elect Joe Biden said during his campaign that he intended to stop construction of the wall.

Promise: The wall would cost between 8 and 12 billion dollars, and Mexico would pay for it.

Reality: It cost $ 15 billion and was paid for by U.S. taxpayers

Perhaps Trump's most recurring promise about the border wall was that Mexico would pay for its construction: "

I will make Mexico pay for that wall; remember my words

," Trump said in his presidential announcement speech, one of hundreds of times he made that promise.

During his 2016 campaign, he claimed that the 1,000-mile wall would cost $ 8 billion, or perhaps $ 12 billion.

But the federal government has allocated $ 15 billion for the 453-mile project, according to Time magazine.

[Extremists turn to secret platforms to plan violent acts during Biden's inauguration]

Mexico did not pay for the wall:

 its leaders have refused.

Upon his inauguration, Trump began to suggest that the United States would initially pay for the wall, but that Mexico would reimburse it.  

That has not happened either.

American taxpayers have paid the bill for Trump's wall.

Promise: The wall will be "big, beautiful" and "concrete".

Reality: Not exactly

Trump spent a lot of time as a candidate talking about what his "big and beautiful" border wall would look like.

He often said that it would be made of concrete;

It said it would be between 35 and 80 feet tall, depending on the area.

[Trump is lying when he says that immigrants do not keep their appointments in immigration courts]

As president, he

spent millions on prototypes of border walls

, some concrete and some steel, to test new wall structures;

all eight were vulnerable and have since been shot down.

The Trump Administration has continued to use steel fence designs for border barriers, as has the Obama Administration.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2021-01-13

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.