Day 48: Trump Ponders Weakening National Security to Pay for Border Wall

Donald Trump has repeatedly hammered that he wants a wall on the southern border to undocumented migrants and drugs from entering the U.S. from Mexico.

Trump’s wall is set to cost taxpayers — not Mexico — roughly $21 billion. The problem is that Trump has only managed to find $20 million to fund the wall. Quite a difference a letter makes.

Needing to fund the other 99.905% of the wall, Trump is considering areas of the budget that can be slashed. Yesterday, news broke about where Trump is looking to find the elusive wall funds. They include:

• Coast Guard — approximately $1.3 billion in cuts (14% of budget). Cuts include deactivating Maritime Security Response Teams, which carry out counterterrorism patrols in ports and sensitive waterways.
• TSA —approximately $500 million in cuts (11% of budget). Cuts include: elimination of four programs that have been considered a vital piece of airport security and for preventing a repetition of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings after planes are aloft.
• FEMA — approximately $400 million in cuts (11% of budget). Cuts include the elimination or reduction of helping states and local governments prepare for natural disasters through training, salaries and benefits for staff, coordination and state-of the-art equipment.

Of the cuts, The Washington Post is reporting that $2.9 billion will go to building the wall, with $1.9 billion funding various Immigration and Customs Enforcement expenses, plus $285 million to hire 500 more Border Patrol agents and 1,000 more ICE agents and support staffers.

Unsurprisingly, there was swift backlash for those affected.

“It is ignorant of what constitutes national security,” said retired Adm. James Loy, a former Coast Guard commandant who served as deputy homeland security secretary and TSA administrator under President George W. Bush. “They simply don’t understand the equation.”

Loy and others argue that hiring more border agents and building a wall are likely to increase the need for guarding ports and coastlines. And they contend that the Coast Guard, which intercepted more than 6,000 illegal migrants in 2016, is already overtaxed in interdicting illegal drugs and people from Central and South America while defending ports of entry from terrorist attack. Under its current budget, they say, it can’t afford to buy the new helicopters and ships it needs.

“As you harden the land border you open up the maritime border,” argued Stephen Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander who is director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University. “It makes no sense. You are going to have this balloon effect.”

Trump’s idea is to stop drugs and migrants from entering the U.S. via Mexico, but all he has done is move key resources from other vital areas aiding in national security and natural disasters. People will simply find other ways to get what they want into the U.S. now that resources are being shuffled.

Local communities, the TSA and the Coast Guard will be asked to do more with less. All so that a wall can be built that experts say is unlikely to do much regarding the influx of people or drugs.

48 days in, 1414 to go

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