7-Mile Border Wall Expansion Begins in Arizona

Arizona shares an approximately 370-mile border with Mexico.

Construction of an additional seven miles of the southern border wall in Arizona began on Sunday.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the expansion of the unfinished wall in a video statement on X.

“Right at this spot, you can see where the border wall ends,” Noem said. “As of today, we’re starting seven new miles of construction. We’re going to continue to make America safe again.”

Arizona shares an approximately 370-mile border with Mexico.

During his first term, Trump built more than 450 miles of new and replacement wall along the southern border.

After President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he called off construction of the wall, leaving billions of dollars worth of construction on the southern border wall unfinished.

Biden took a much different approach and tasked his vice president, Kamala Harris, with tackling the “root causes of displacement and out-migration.”

When Trump ran for a second term, he pledged to finish building the wall that he began as part of his larger campaign to crack down on illegal immigration.

In an executive order on the first day of his second term, Trump directed both the defense secretary and homeland security secretary to take action to “construct temporary and permanent physical barriers to ensure complete operational control of the southern border of the United States.”

Vice President JD Vance said earlier this month that Trump’s goal is to finish the physical border wall separating the United States and Mexico by the end of their term.

“I think the president’s hope is that by the end of the term we build the entire border wall,” Vance said during a visit to the border in Eagle Pass, Texas. “And, of course, that’s the physical structure, the border wall itself.

Vance also noted that artificial intelligence technology will be deployed across the entire southern border wall to assist law enforcement.

Trump has highlighted the success his administration has had in securing the southern border so far.

According to the White House, illegal border crossings in February fell to the lowest level ever recorded, down 94 percent from last February and down 96 percent from the all-time high during the Biden Administration.

“The media and our friends in the Democrat party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border,” Trump said during his address to the joint session of Congress. “But it turned out, all we needed was a new president.”

Trump last year urged Republicans to block a Democrat-led border package that shoehorned in $60 billion in funding for Ukraine while leaving what he said was a loophole that would continue to allow thousands of illegal immigrants to enter the country per day.

“We need a separate Border and Immigration Bill. It should not be tied to foreign aid in any way, shape, or form!” Trump wrote in a Feb. 2024 Truth Social post.

Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently awarded its first border wall contract of Trump’s second term.

Customs and Border Protection said in a March 15 statement that the contract was granted to Granite Construction Co. to build approximately seven miles of new border wall in Hidalgo County, Texas. The area is known to have a large number of illegal entries and drug smuggling, according to officials.

“Completing the border wall in these locations will support the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) ability to impede and deny illegal border crossings and the drug- and human-smuggling activities of cartels,” the agency said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.