White House seeks 18 bln dollars for border wall with Mexico: report

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government is asking the Congress for nearly 18 billion U.S. dollars in a decade to expand the current U.S. border wall with Mexico to nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km), it was revealed Friday.

The current barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border is 654 miles (1,000 km) long. The new request, if granted, will bring more than 700 miles (1,140 km) of new and replacement barriers altogether over 10 years.

The plans are laid out in a document prepared by the Department of Homeland Security for a group of senators who asked the administration to detail its request for border security, according to a Wall Street Journal report Friday.

The non-wall requests include 5.7 billion dollars over five years for towers, surveillance equipment, unmanned aerial vehicles and other technology; 1 billion dollars over five years for road construction and maintenance; and 8.5 billion dollars over seven years for 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and other personnel.

The document, which details only the border-security elements, isn't meant to be a complete outline of the Donald Trump administration's requests, which also involve changes to the legal immigration system and other enforcement measures.

The Trump administration has already requested 1.6 billion dollars for new barrier in Texas and San Diego for the current fiscal year. Congress hasn't passed the spending bills for 2018, and wall funding is one of the hang-ups.

The new revealment comes as the White House and the Congress negotiate an immigration package that would legalize young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. The White House has demanded that border security be included in the legislation. Enditem