Pentagon to divert $6 billion from its budget to build more of President Trump's border barrier

Trump bypassed Congress last year to take $6.1 billion from the Pentagon budget for the border project. Photo / AP

The US Department of Defense is diverting US$3.83 billion ($6b) from elsewhere in its budget to build more of President Donald Trump's border barrier, according to budget documents reviewed by The Washington Post, setting in motion a broader White House plan to take some US$7.2b ($11b) from the Pentagon budget this year for the project as Trump heads into the presidential election.

The Pentagon informed Congress on Thursday of its plans to divert the US$3.8b from the purchase of aircraft and other equipment and instead use the funds for the construction of border barriers. The Pentagon is moving the money using an obscure counternarcotics law that allows the Defense Department to build fencing for other federal, state and local agencies in known drug-smuggling corridors.

According to the budget documents, the Pentagon is pulling the funding from two F-35 fighter jets and two Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft for the Marine Corps; one P-8A reconnaissance aircraft for the Navy; and four C-130J transport planes and eight MQ-9 Reaper drones for the Air Force.

In addition, funding will be diverted from programmes to update Humvees and trucks for the Army, buy US$1.3b in "miscellaneous" new equipment for the National Guard and Reserves and develop certain US Navy vessels. The Pentagon told Congress that the funding is either in excess of the military's needs or is not yet needed given the timeline of the programmes in question.

The US$7.2b would give Trump enough money to complete nearly 1400km of new barriers by 2022, a plan that allows the president to campaign for reelection on his signature immigration initiative - and the budget to pay for it.

On Monday the White House released its budget request for 2021 that included US$2b in border wall funds, far less than what Trump is planning to take from defense funding.

The Pentagon in Washington. Photo / AP

The Trump administration is making the moves without approval from Congress, which under the US Constitution is given the power to appropriate federal funds. Some US states and advocacy groups are challenging the legality of the administration's plans in federal courts.

The move comes after Trump bypassed Congress last year to take US$6.1b from the Pentagon budget for the border project.

To take the funding, Trump used the counternarcotics law, as well as another little-known statute in US code, which allows the Pentagon, in the event of a national emergency requiring the deployment of troops, to divert military construction funds to pay for infrastructure needed by those forces.

About 5000 troops - including National Guard and active-duty forces - remain deployed to the US southern border. The Joint Chiefs of Staff determined last year that the construction of border barriers would support those troops - the active-duty component of which is deployed under a national emergency Trump declared early last year.

The Pentagon suggested that the US$3.6b in military construction funds it was diverting to border barriers last year would be "backfilled" by Congress, potentially leading to no delays in the projects that were defunded. But the money wasn't replenished, so the projects are de facto canceled until they receive funding.

The White House is expected to take a similar amount again this year from military constructions funds, but Pentagon officials have not said which construction projects that Congress has approved would be defunded to free up that money.

A journalist in Anapara, Mexico, sticks her microphone through a through a border fence to interview a Border Patrol agent. Photo / AP

Administration officials with knowledge of the discussions said the money will likely be diverted once more from military construction projects, and the Pentagon's civil works budget could also be diverted to pay for barrier construction.

Projects that had their funding pulled last year include the restoration of US military facilities destroyed by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, installations the US military said it would build in Europe to help deter Russia and a number of schools on US military bases in the United States and abroad.