President Donald Trump's campaign promise of building a border will likely take longer than he hoped.
To begin work, the White House asked Congress for $1.5 billion, which was supposed to be tucked inside a supplemental appropriations bill. The deadline for passage is in ten days, and Democrats like border Congressman Henry Cuellar see it as a poison pill.
"I would rather use those billions of dollars for our highways, instead of a 14th century solution to the 21st century problem of immigration," he tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI.
Cuellar (D-Laredo) is spending this week meeting with border lawmakers and landowners this Easter break before he heads back to Washington. The appropriations bill faces an April 28th deadline, and he says, while Republicans have a majority, they don’t have the vote to block a filibuster.
"With all due respect to my Republican friends, this is the time to be bipartisan," he says.
If the border wall funding is pulled from this bill, it will likely be punted until this summer, giving the White House more time to rally support. But Cuellar predicts the problems involving eminent domain will not go away.
"There are a lot of private land owners who are saying, 'Hey! I don’t want the federal government to take over my land.'"
There are already about 700 miles of the border with some fencing. That leaves about 1,200 miles uncovered, although some areas, like Lake Amistad, have a natural barrier.
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