President Donald Trump has been eager to show progress on construction of his long-promised wall on the border with Mexico. So eager that Wednesday he sent a tweet showing the building of steel fencing in southern New Mexico with the video sped up to add a sense of both efficiency and urgency.
He retweeted himself Thursday with the all-caps proclamation “THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW!”
This is misleading.
The government has built about 700 miles of wall and fencing along the border since 2006. The barriers, damaged by migrants trying to get through them or by the elements, need periodic repairs.
The section of the barrier that Trump showcased this week was not new construction, but rather replacement for existing fencing. The money for the steel-slatted barrier came from a congressional appropriation in 2017, not from newly authorized spending in the recent deal that averted a government shutdown, or from money the president is seeking to take from other federal projects under his national emergency declaration from last week.
A construction contract for the replacement bollard fencing was awarded Jan. 22, 2018, to a company in Montana, according to a news release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“The area of the border wall replacement will be a 20-mile section of existing vehicle barrier located just west of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry and extending westward” in New Mexico, the release said. “The existing barrier will be replaced with an 18- to 30-foot-high bollard-style wall.”
The contract called for the project to be completed in about 390 days. The agency also highlighted the benefits of the see-through characteristics of the bollard wall.
Trump noted that the project finished ahead of schedule.
Whether there will be new wall or fence construction in that area is an open question. New Mexico is among the states suing the Trump administration to challenge his emergency declaration.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.