In the final months of Trump’s first term, his Administration touted the completion of more than 450 miles of the promised border wall, a symbol of the President’s hardline approach to immigration. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) tracking shows that dozens more miles have been completed since Trump’s return to office last January, with work underway on hundreds of others.
Administration officials have recently said that work on the primary portion of the wall is set to be finished as soon as next year.
“President Trump kept his promise to the American people to secure the Southern Border and delivered fifteen straight months of zero releases into the United States,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis says in a statement to TIME. “The world has heard the President’s message that our borders are closed to lawbreakers. We are committed to finishing building the wall so our border stays secure for years to come.”
About 700 miles of a “primary” border wall have so far been built along the U.S.-Mexico border, which stretches for nearly 2,000 miles in total, according to tracking from CBP.
Border fortifications also include a “waterborne barrier system” that features “a string of 4- to 5-foot diameter continuous buoys,” according to CBP, as well as boat ramps, bridges, and patrol roads running along rivers. Most of the U.S.-Mexico border is made up of rivers: the Rio Grande accounts for roughly two-thirds, while a much smaller portion runs along the Colorado River.
At the time of Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, roughly 644 miles of primary wall and 75 miles of secondary wall were in place at the border, per CBP.
Since Trump took office for the second time, 59 new miles of primary wall and 42 miles of secondary wall have been built, according to CBP. An additional 38 miles of primary wall has been replaced during that time.
A CBP official tells TIME that of the appropriated budget, $33.6 billion has been awarded in contracts for construction of the border wall.
In Trump’s second term, 42 miles of secondary wall have also been constructed, with 384 more miles currently under construction.
Challenges in construction
Trump’s Administrations have faced several hurdles in constructing the border wall.
Among multiple challenges that have been made in response to the government’s attempts to acquire land, the Texas General Land Office in July sent CBP and an agency contractor a cease-and-desist letter after it said it discovered that the contractor had cleared over a mile of state land for construction, using heavy machinery and destroying vegetation.
In a case of a tribal-land dispute, meanwhile, the Tohono O’odham Nation is challenging a 62-mile wall project that it argues would infringe on the sovereignty of its Arizona reservation.
If such land owners do not accept federal payments for their land to be used, the government retains the legal power to seize private property for public use through eminent domain.
Between January 2017 and August 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed 109 eminent domain declarations in its quest to acquire land to construct border barriers, according to a 2020 GAO report. The DOJ did not respond to TIME’s request for comment regarding the number of such cases that have been filed under Trump’s second Administration.
The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, which oversees approvals for wells across the state, found that eight wells were drilled without its permission along the U.S.-Mexico border, and noted there could be more, according to The Associated Press.
A series of environmental lawsuits have also been levied against the Administration alleging that it has skirted environmental regulations to construct its border wall.
When is the Administration aiming to finish the wall?
Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin said in June that: “On the border wall … we are on track to have the primary wall done, completed from the Pacific to Gulf of America at this time next year.”
To that end, the agency has announced that it expects to have completed 250 miles of “new barrier” under the second Trump Administration by September 30 this year.
Scott also said that the secondary wall system will be completed by July 2028.
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