Despite Trump Promises, There Are Still No Plans for a Mexican Border Wall
POLITICS SEP 14 2017, 5:31 PM ET
by MIKE MEMOLI
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WASHINGTON — President Trump made clear Thursday he is determined to get his wall. But his demands, and occasional threats to shut down the government over funding it, belie the stark reality facing his administration: Nine months into his presidency, there is no plan for constructing the kind of wall the president promised his voters for two years.
A study Trump ordered in January on how to fully secure the border has not been completed. His transition team focused on immigration enforcement plans with greater chances of success. Proposed wall prototypes — which officials had hoped to deploy this summer — are months behind schedule. Construction firms have stayed away amid the prospect of political retaliation. And new NBC News polling suggests only lukewarm support for a wall the president today said would happen.
It's a familiar refrain in the Trump era: a major presidential priority that Trump insists will be realized while leaving essential details unresolved. He warns of political consequences for Republicans who stood in the way of legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare even as lawmakers privately questioned his grasp of the issue. And his first moves in a major tax reform push have been similarly big on promises but short on details.
Trump insisted Thursday he wasn't backing down on his campaign promise, even as Democratic leaders said the president had offered the night before to support legislation to protect so-called Dreamers in return for a more scaled-down border security plan. "They cannot obstruct the wall," he told reporters in Florida. "The wall, to me, is vital. If I don't get the wall, then we will become the obstructionists."
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/despite-trump-promises-there-are-still-no-plans-mexican-border-n801361
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