Report: DHS has only identified $20 million to fund border wall construction

The Department of Homeland Security has identified only $20 million in funding that could be shifted to President Trump’s plan to build a wall along the southern border, significantly less than the more than $21 billion price tag, according to Reuters.

The money was included in a document obtained by Reuters and prepared by DHS to distribute to congressional staff last week. It would only be enough to cover a handful of contracts for wall prototypes, the report said, but not enough to start building a physical wall.

In order to move forward, Congress would need to approve new funding to pay for the wall, but there’s been little movement on such action on Capitol Hill. Last month, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, said in an interview with MSNBC’s Greta Van Susteren that congressional leaders were considering legislation to fund the border wall, drawing on taxpayer dollars despite promises that Mexico would finance the project.

“First off, we’re going to pay for it and front the money up,” Ryan said at the time. “But I do think that there are various ways -- as you know, I know your follow-up question is, is Mexico going to pay for the wall? There are a lot of different ways of getting Mexico to contribute to doing this. And there are different ways of defining how, exactly they pay for it.”

“We agree with that goal and we will be working with him to finance construction of the physical barrier, including the wall, on the southern border,” Ryan added.

Earlier this month, Reuters obtained a DHS report that was to be presented to Secretary John Kelly that said building the border wall would cost $21.6 billion. The report detailed how the U.S. could build a barrier -- including both walls and fences -- along 1,250 miles of the border over the next three years. And the report said the first phase of construction would target the areas near San Diego, California, El Paso, Texas and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.