Experts say Trump’s border wall will take years longer than he claims

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

President Donald Trump (C) is shown border wall prototypes in San Diego, California on March 13, 2018.

President Trump claimed this week that his long-promised wall — the solution for what he describes as an illegal immigration crisis at America’s southern border — would be “finished” in just two years’ time.

But it’s more likely to take years longer than that, construction experts say.

Trump tweet: BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL! This is the new theme, for two years until the Wall is finished (under construction now), of the Republican Party. Use it and pray!

A bitter fight over that proposed barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border has led to a record-breaking government shutdown, which has now stretched well into its second month. The latest attempts to reopen the government failed in Senate on Thursday.

The acrimonious negotiations on Capitol Hill have centered around whether a spending package to reopen nine federal agencies should include billions of dollars to fund a border barrier. Democrats have held firm against providing any money for the wall, and have called on Trump to reopen the government and continue border security negotiations separately.

Trump is demanding $5.7 billion in border wall funding before ending the shutdown, arguing that the so-called crisis cannot be ignored or delayed. Trump has even threatened to declare a national emergency in order to sidestep House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

One expert, however, recently estimated that it could take 11 years for 10,000 workers to build 1,000 miles of steel border barrier, a length Trump had called for on numerous occasions during the campaign.

Ed Zarenski, a construction economics analyst with three decades of experience as a building projects cost estimator, said he arrived at those figures by first approximating the total cost of various materials involved, such as concrete, steel and temporary roads.

He estimated that it could cost $22 billion to cover the whole project — a number he admits is likely “much too optimistic” because it excludes factors including inflation, workers’ accommodations and land acquisition.