Trump Administration Built 80 Miles of New Border Wall
The Claim
The Trump administration has built 450 miles of completely new border wall.
News posted on
Emerging story
Originally posted on Twitter by Steve Cortes on January 12th, 2020, is a picture of President Donald Trump walking along a US-Mexico border wall with the caption “Pres Trump visits the border today, where 450 miles of new, formidable walling protects our country. #AmericaFirst."
In a video of a press conference given by President Trump on January 12th in Texas during his visit to the border wall, he also claims to have delivered the “completion of the promised 450 miles of border wall.”
Many Twitter users responded by thanking the President with one calling it his “greatest achievement.”
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found the claim that the Trump Administration built 450 miles of new – with an emphasis on new – border wall to be incorrect.
According to the US Customs and Border Protection website, there are 453 miles of new construction on the wall. However, when you click on the interactive map showing each section of the border wall, most of it is “under construction” or in “pre-construction.” This means it is not actually completed.
The Trump Administration did work on a total of 453 miles of border wall. Much of this was “replacing existing structures at the border that had been built by previous US administrations,” according to the BBC. Under Trump, the U.S. replaced 373 miles of previously constructed wall, and put up 80 miles of border wall in areas that previously had no barriers between Mexico and the U.S.
The administration experienced many problems securing funding for the wall, even going to the Supreme Court and Appeals Court.
Since the claim is that there are 450 miles of new border wall under the Trump administration, we rate this claim as false. While the administration replaced much of the previously existing construction, there are only approximately 80 miles of new barriers.
