Democrats Funded ‘Wall’ Under Bush, Obama–Refuse Same Barrier to Trump

(Getty Images)

17 Dec 2018

4:31

Many House and Senate Democrats voted to fund the same bollard-style fencing constructed by Presidents Bush and Obama that they now oppose under President Trump.

Ahead of a government shutdown, Trump is asking the Republican-controlled Congress for $5 billion in funding — just a fifth of the funding needed — to build what he continues to call a U.S.-Mexico “border wall,” though the barrier is almost identical to the bollard fencing erected by both Bush and Obama.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), along with their Democrat caucuses in the House and Senate, have objected to funding any barriers resembling a wall along the southern border.

Many of those same Democrats now opposing the funding of border barriers, once supported the use of fencing at the southern border less than a decade ago.

The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized the construction of 700 miles of the same style of bollard fence that Trump is building at the border, was supported by 26 Senate Democrats at the time. In the House, 64 Democrats joined 219 Republican lawmakers to fund the border fencing.

Those Democrats in support of funding the bollard border fencing included:

• Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
• Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
• Then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
• Then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)
• Then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

All 54 Senate Democrats, in 2013, voted again to commit funding to secure 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border in the Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act which was authored and introduced by Schumer.

Though the border legislation never became law, the Democrat-backed plan would have authorized the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to implement “a Southern Border Fencing Strategy to identify where 700 miles of fencing and technology should be deployed along the Southern border.”

As the New York Times has noted in a series of charts, almost 700 miles of barriers have been constructed at the southern border since 2006 with little-to-no objection from elected Democrats.

(Screenshot via the New York Times)

The Trump administration’s bollard fencing is more than 10 feet higher than those same fences constructed by the Bush and Obama administrations. Since his inauguration, Trump has replaced portions of existing border fences with this new 30-foot high bollard fence.

As these photographs show, the Calexico, California project was completed in October:

Border Patrol officers keep watch before US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen inaugurates the first completed section of President Trumps 30-foot border wall in the El Centro Sector, at the US Mexico border in Calexico, California on October 26, 2018. (MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)