The media laughed at Donald Trump after he came down the escalator in 2015 and said he would build a wall.
They are not laughing anymore.
What CBP just reported about the southern border is the number Trump's enemies spent ten years insisting was impossible.
Border Wall Construction 2026: Five Miles a Week and Democrats Have No Answer
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 221 miles of primary smart wall are under construction right now.
Contracts have been awarded for an additional 370 miles with design already underway. Another 44 miles of replacement wall and 183 miles of secondary backup wall are going up simultaneously.
Crews are laying five miles of new barrier every week — pushing into stretches of Texas that have never had a wall and doubling up across California, Arizona, and New Mexico where a primary barrier already stands.
When all the money is spent, 1,419 miles of the 1,954-mile border will be covered. CBP anticipates completing 250 miles of new barriers by September 30, 2026 alone.
The engine behind it is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed last summer, which included $46.5 billion for what CBP calls a "smart wall" – physical barriers paired with cameras, lighting, sensors, and road access. CBP has already placed $11.4 billion in contracts, with remaining awards scheduled before the end of this month.
Nancy Pelosi called this wall "immoral."
How Biden Sold Trump's Border Wall Materials for Pennies on the Dollar
Biden halted all border wall construction on his first day in office.
Then his administration took the steel bollards and panels Trump had already purchased – worth an estimated $260 to $350 million – and sold them through GovPlanet, an online government surplus auction site. 33 foot steel wall panels went for $1 apiece in sets of five.
Border Patrol agents watched it happen in real time.
"They are taking it from three stations: Nogales, Tucson and Three Points," one agent told The Daily Wire. "The goal is to move all of it off the border before Christmas."
Another added: "They just started taking all the wall that was not used, which is still totally good and usable, and they started taking it northbound."
"They stole the wall from us," Trump told reporters at The Kennedy Center. "Biden sold it for pennies on the dollar, three cents on the dollar, four cents on the dollar. He sold it."
Then Biden opened the border. Encounters topped 2 million in fiscal year 2023. Cities from New York to Chicago to Denver buckled under the migrant surge. It cost Democrats the 2024 election.
Trump came back. And he's building.
Why the Smart Wall Has No Opposition Left
The wall opposition has gone nearly silent, and there are two reasons.
The first is exhaustion. Trump is moving on too many fronts at once – trade, foreign policy, deportations, energy – and the resistance cannot keep up. Every news cycle brings something new. The wall doesn't make the cut anymore.
The second reason is that Biden destroyed their argument for them.
Democrats spent eight years calling the wall immoral, racist, and ineffective. Pelosi made it a moral crusade. Then Biden took power, proved every word of it wrong, and handed Trump the most powerful pro-wall advertisement in American history.
Support for border barriers returned to majority status before Trump's second inauguration. Republicans and independents moved firmly behind it.
The argument was over before Trump laid a single mile of new wall.
Why the One Big Beautiful Bill Changes the Border Forever
Every other piece of Trump's immigration enforcement is reversible.
The deportations, the asylum policy changes, the executive orders ending catch-and-release – the next Socialist Democrat in the White House cancels them on day one. They know this. They plan on it.
A wall is different.
Vance said in Eagle Pass, Texas last year: "I think the president's hope is that by the end of the term we build the entire border wall."
At five miles a week, with $46.5 billion behind it and contracts running through 2029, that's not a hope anymore. It's a construction schedule.
A future administration can gut ICE, restore catch-and-release, and unwind every Trump-era enforcement mechanism with a signature. What they cannot do is tear down 1,400 miles of steel and concrete without the entire country watching.
Biden showed America what open borders actually looks like. Trump is making sure the next Biden has to own that decision visibly – with cameras rolling and voters paying attention.
That's not a win for this term alone. That's a permanent shift in what's possible at the southern border.
Sources:
- Byron York, "Trump Builds the Wall," Washington Examiner, June 5, 2026.
- "CBP's Historic First Year Under the Current Administration," U.S. Customs and Border Protection, cbp.gov.
- "Border Brief: The Trump Administration Positions Our Borders to Be More Secure Than Ever in 2026," House Committee on Homeland Security, January 24, 2026.
- "Trump Border Wall Materials Sold by Biden May Soon Find Their Way Back to the Feds," Fox News, August 10, 2025.
- "Up to $350M in Unused Border Wall Materials Set to Be Returned," NewsNation, August 14, 2025.
- Jennie Taer, "How the 'Big Beautiful Bill' Will Allow President Trump to Finally Finish the Border Wall," New York Post, 2025.
- "Trump Hoping to Complete Southern Border Wall by 2029: Vance," The Hill, March 6, 2025.