The plans by President Trump to ”build the wall” is the present-day continuation of an effort to control the very porous 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border that began in 1994 with the George H.W. Bush administration. It was continued by the 1996 Republican Congress and President Bill Clinton.
At that time three walls were funded for control in California, Arizona and New Mexico. This was a piecemeal program and resulted in poor quality and incomplete protection, so in 2006, President George W. Bush and Congress passed the bipartisan Secure Fence Act, HR 6061. This provided for uniform quality fencing from the Pacific Ocean in San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico.
By 2010, 700 miles have been built from San Diego to the Texas Border at a cost of $3.5 million per mile. Some fencing has been built at Brownsville, Texas, but the longest unbuilt section of the proposed wall is from New Mexico through Texas along the Rio Grande River which defines the border in Texas. Forty-seven miles of the original act are still to be built.