President Trump Can Fund the Border Wall with Unobligated Balances

... To his great credit, President Trump has remained steadfast in his determination to build a border partition on the southern border. Such border partitions have proven to be effective. In San Diego, a border partition lowered apprehensions by 95%, while in El Paso, the number decreased by 89%. President Trump has correctly claimed that Israel's southern border wall is 99.9% successful. According to a report released by Senator Ron Johnson, Israel's southern border fence was central to a decline of 99.9% of illegal border crossings, with over 16,000 crossings in 2011 down to fewer than 20 in 2016. Israel's security partition running near the Green Line has also proven extremely effective in an exceptional decline in terrorist attacks.

Since completion of the partition in El Paso, they have seen a significant decrease in drug-smuggling and other crimes. In 2015, the U.S. Border Patrol seized close to 800 tons of illegal drugs, 99.4% of which were seized at the southern border. The sale of illegal drugs in the U.S. costs many thousands of lives each year, but due to the profitable nature of the sale of illicit drugs, a number of dangerous organizations, such as Hezb'allah, continue to be active in transporting drugs into the United States.

As of August 2017, about 1,249 miles of the southern border remain unprotected, though the border wall continues to be built. ...

According to the report released by Senator Ron Johnson, the cost per mile for Israel's southern border partition is $2.9 million. A similarly priced partition on 1,249 miles of the U.S. southern border would be about $3.6 billion. Even with additional border patrol agents, and various new technologies, such as motion sensors, video cameras, night sensors, drones, and tunnel detection technology, an effective border wall would still be cost-effective and likely significantly lower than recent cost estimates of $15 to 25 billion. ...