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DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM
A security improvement project at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kailua is being pulled back to help pay for President Donald Trump’s border wall. A security guard checked cars Wednesday before they entered The Back Gate, also known as the Mokapu Gate, at the Marine Corps Bay in Kaneohe.
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The folly of President Donald Trump’s $3.6 billion border wall continues to grow, with the president now aiming to pay for it off the backs of various states’ military projects — including $32 million allocated for Hawaii. Billions of dollars in Congress-approved projects are being deferred — but it’s hoped that a court order can prevent this diversion of military funds. Hawaii’s two snagged projects: a new $26.5 million perimeter gate for Kaneohe’s Marine Corps Base for enhanced security; and $5.5 million for a new training facility at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
Hawaii U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, in opposing any request for backfill money for the defunded projects, rightly stated: “The American people cannot be asked to foot the bill a second time for projects that this administration has decided to funnel money away from, to pay for a wall that will do nothing to end the humanitarian crisis on the southern border or protect our national security.”
Hawaii would be affected, but the hardest hits would be to Guam, with some $257 million in projects halted, and struggling Puerto Rico, which would lose $403 million in military construction.
It wasn’t so long ago that, when asked repeatedly who would pay for the touted expansion of the U.S.-Mexico barrier, Trump said he would “build the wall and make Mexico pay for it.”
Not so, unfortunately.