More than a decade after Donald Trump first proposed a wall on the southern border, it is finally on track to become a reality by the end of his second presidential term. This week, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Rodney Scott gave an updated timetable on completion of the border wall at an event with the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. "The plans look like they are going to be able to finish all of the wall construction by early 2028, and that includes all the second-level walls," says Mark Krikorian, CIS executive director. "And it's pretty much gonna cover the whole border, except for the particular areas that they decide they don't need it."
One of those areas that doesn't need a wall is in Big Bend National Park, where there are natural barriers like high cliffs. Along the 1,200 mile stretch of the Rio Grande River that separates the U.S. and Mexico, there will be an expansion of the floating border barriers that Texas began installing three years ago. "It's gonna have a physical barrier in most places, but that's not all there is to it," says Krikorian. "You need to have cameras, ground sensors, all kinds of other stuff like that."
"So it's a wall system, rather than just a wall that you can build it and forget it, which obviously can't work."
As for why the project has taken so much longer than expected, much of that has to do with the Biden administration halting work on the project for four years, before construction resumed at the onset of Trump's second term. Full funding for the wall also arrived last year as part of the Big, Beautiful Bill. If the current timetable holds, President Trump will have one of his ultimate legacy projects finished by the time he leaves office in early 2029...14 years after he first proposed it. "That just tells you how difficult it truly is to get things done in D.C., both through the bureaucracy and also political opposition," says Krikorian. "But it also tells you that the president has been relentless and implacable on this, and that's what it takes."
"It's hard to get things changed, but if you stick to it relentlessly, you can in fact, make progress."
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