Meet the private groups helping build Trump's border wall
SUNLAND PARK, New Mexico — Since declaring his candidacy for president in 2015, Donald Trump has been remarkably successful at getting people to chant about building border walls. But when it comes to actually putting one up, the president has struggled to make progress.
During Trump’s first three years in office, his government has managed to replace only 100 miles of existing border barriers with new fence. For those keeping score at home, that works out to about 31 feet of construction for every tweet.
But when it comes to building new border wall where none previously existed, private groups are outpacing the Trump government. Now they’re hoping to cash in on those efforts by landing lucrative government contracts to build hundreds of miles of wall in time to help Trump get reelected in November.
“We're working on a parallel path with President Trump to get as much border wall security systems as we can,” Brian Kolfage, founder and CEO of We Build the Wall, told Univision’s Real America with Jorge Ramos (RAJR).
So far, We Build the Wall and private contractor Tommy Fisher have put up four miles of private border fence in New Mexico and Texas. That might not seem like a lot, but the slow-going hasn’t tempered their forecasts for 2020.
“ We can build 200 miles privately right now in the State of Texas if the president gives us the green light,” Kolfage recently told Fox News.
In quieter moments, Kolfage acknowledges that he’d need more than just a green light. He’d also need greenbacks— billions of dollars in government funding to make Trump’s wall happen. Kolfage’s organization, which has raised more than $25 million in online donations over the past year, has already spent nearly half their nest egg, he said.
“By the end of 2020, we could be looking at close to 10 miles [of new border wall] with what we have in the bank,” Kolfage said. Yet even that could be a stretch; the first 4 miles of private wall cost Kolfage and Fisher more than $50 million, most of which was fronted by Fisher.
Middle man
“Obviously we can't build 100 miles, but we can facilitate that, if we can get government funding,” Kolfage told Univision. “Look, we’re a middle man trying to find a way around for the government to secure this nation.”
As a middle man, We Build the Wall is working to get private landowners in the Rio Grande Valley to sign letters of intent to allow border wall construction on their properties. Kolfage claims “a bunch” of Texas landowners are emailing them daily to say “I want a border barrier in my backyard.” Now he just needs to figure out a way to turn his unofficial role as freelance intermediary into an official role as a government contractor.
“If the American people want to fund this, whether it's through donations or whether it's through the government, we're giving them another avenue to take,” Kolfage says.
A viral beginning
We Build the Wall captured the nation’s attention a little over a year ago when Kolfage, a triple amputee war veteran, launched a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money for Trump’s border wall. It quickly went viral. Kolfage netted a stunning $20 million in 20 days, surprising everyone, including himself.
Kolfage says his original plan was to cut a check for Trump and let the president “earmark” that money for his wall. But he soon learned government doesn’t work that way. “I was just naive,” he says. “I didn't understand the system. I wasn't involved in politics.”
So Kolfage instead reached out to fellow veteran Steven Bannon for advice. “ It was actually Steve Bannon's idea. He was like, ‘Brian, why don't you just build this wall yourself, take that money, go build up private property’,” Kolfage remembers.
Kolfage liked the advice so much he put Bannon on the board of We Build the Wall. “Steve is definitely involved in a lot of strategic type stuff,” Kolfage said. “I call him every other day to bounce ideas off him because I've never been involved in anything politically this large.”
Also involved in the day-to-day operation is fellow board member Kris Kobach, a GOP senate hopeful from Kansas and Trump acolyte who Kolfage says has a direct line to the president. The other right-wing board members, including Blackwater founder Erik Prince and former MLB pitcher-turned-pundit Curt Schilling, have less involved roles in the organization.
Kolfage, who now draws a salary of $10,000 a month as CEO of We Build the Wall, says his non-profit organization is now mostly concerned with educating people in the heartland about the “humanitarian crisis at the border,” and fundraising for private wall. And they’ve been very successful, raising $25.4 million from almost 250,000 donors, including $2 million from five-dollar donations, according to Kolfage.
Fundraising
But as with all online fundraising, it’s hard to keep the pot boiling. “We'll never have that spike again,” Kolfage says, referring to the first three weeks of his GoFundMe campaign, when they raised 80% of their money. “Now we're just going to turn more into a traditional non-profit and start doing things that a normal non-profit would do.”
The aggressive fundraising efforts continue, however. As a sweetener, Kolfage bought a bunch of autographed copies of Donald Trump Jr.’s book “Triggered” to give to donors. “It's for a premium,” he said. “We buy the books and it allows us to raise money.”
Kolfage bristles at the criticism that We Build the Wall is a scam.
“How is this a scam? I’m not even going to address that. It speaks for itself,” Kolfage said, nodding to his wall. “The American people are giving us money. We are going out and doing exactly as we intended and we're giving them exactly what they asked for. There's no scam. That's just ridiculous.”
Kolfage also denies that his wall, built at a 30% incline up the side of a mountain and illuminated at night like a monument to Trumpism, is a publicity stunt. But he does not deny that it’s a proof-of-concept — a model border wall that he and Fisher are using to showcase their work to the government.
“ Tommy Fisher did it faster than any contractor who worked for the government, more efficient than any contractor,” Kolfage says. “Department of Homeland Security originally told this landowner that it was impossible to build here. And if they did do it, it would it cost like $40 million to get up the mountain. And we did it... for $8 million. I mean, it shows when you have a good system in place, as Tommy Fisher does, he can do it fast and more efficient.”
Fisher agrees with that assessment.
“If the government does say, hey, we love it, get to work on 100 miles, 200 miles, 500 miles, I can take those people that are trained here, and within a matter of a few weeks, we could be working in three or four different headings on the Rio Grande, easily doing a mile a day,” he told Real America with Jorge Ramos at his worksite in Texas.
Fisher Sand & Gravel was already awarded a $400 million border wall contract, but that’s currently under investigation by the Department of Defense’s inspector general.
Legal challenges
Fisher’s private wall in Mission, Texas is also facing several legal challenges. The National Butterfly Center, which neighbors Fisher’s property, filed a lawsuit arguing that the fence will eventually clog with debris and essentially turn into a dam, leading to flooding and erosion. The Federal Government’s International Boundary and Water Commission has also filed a legal complaint, arguing that Fisher’s wall is in violation of the U.S.’ border treaty with Mexico, and poses a risk of causing “immediate and irreparable damage” to the U.S.”
Critics worry that building a giant wall on the shifting alluvial sands of the riverbank could make for a precariously wobbly structure, or divert the river’s flow and redraw the border with Mexico.
“Our border is the central line of the river, so anything that changes the flow of the river’s flow changes the U.S.-Mexican border,” says Javier Peña, attorney for the National Butterfly Center. “So we could see, for the first time in a long time, American land being given back to Mexico just because they wanted this vanity project.”
Fisher, who has been fined 16 times by the Environmental Protection Agency since 2000 and doled out more than $450,000 in fines, according to Good Jobs First, dismisses concerns that his wall will cause erosion or have any other negative environmental impact.
“I guarantee you, you come back 20 years from now and you can step off from this fence and you'll stand right here at the banks of the Rio Grande. It will not erode,” Fisher said.
Hitching their wagon to Trump
Though Kolfage and Fisher are gambling with large sums of money, the payoff in government contracts could be enormous. After Congress refused to give the White House all the money it wanted for the border wall, President Trump declared a national emergency on the southern border a year ago so that he can divert an additional $7 billion the U.S. military budget to fund construction.
Kolfage thinks his success and Trump’s success are symbiotic.
“There's a lot of people who want to stop us. They want to see us fail, because this [border wall] is the lightning rod of everything that President Trump wants,” Kolfage says.
“And here we are, this private company, a nonprofit, doing what President Trump wants to do. So, of course we're gonna be attacked by people. People want to see us fail, just like they want to see President Trump fail," he added.