‘The Wall Is Almost Built!’ Trump Brags To Rally Crowd, But Only 360 Miles Have Been Finished (And Only 5 Miles Are New)

Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images.

President Donald Trump told a crowd at a campaign rally in Wisconsin that the border wall was “almost built,” but the reality is that his administration has only built 360 miles of border wall, and of that, only 5 miles are new construction where no barrier existed before.

During the president’s remarks Saturday evening in Janesville, someone in the crowd yelled, “Build the wall!”

“The wall is almost built,” Trump replied.

Someone in the crowd yells build the wall and President says the wall is almost built pic.twitter.com/nBsCCkx0vo

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) October 18, 2020

Here are the facts.

The land border between the United States and Mexico stretches 1,933 miles.

Prior to Trump’s presidency, there were 354 miles of pedestrian barriers and 300 miles of anti-vehicle fencing, for a total of 654 miles of barriers.

According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website, 360 miles of the border wall system have been built during the Trump administration, covering less than 19 percent of the total border.

However, the vast majority of that construction consisted of secondary barriers added to sections with existing walls, or reconstruction and repair work.

The featured image on this article is one such example of this, February 2019 construction work on a secondary border wall in Otay Mesa, California.

As of June of this year, only three miles of the border wall was actually new construction where no barrier had existed before, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The San Antonio Express-News found a slight increase to that figure as of August, putting the total amount of completely new wall construction at a whopping five miles.

Oh, and yeah…Mexico didn’t pay for it, not even the new five miles.