by Paul Bedard, Washington Examiner
A pro-Trump group has taken the president’s demand for border wall funding to the streets around Capitol Hill, warning that a barrier is needed to thwart 1,809 illegal crossing attempts every single day.
America First Policies, which promotes President Trump’s agenda, has outfitted a truck with a billboard “ticker” that displays the minute-by-minute count of illegal crossing attempts at the U.S.-Mexico border.
So far, there have been some 66,000 attempts this year, and America First Policies said that another attempt occurs every 48 seconds. It based its numbers on estimates from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Experts have estimated that about half of all illegal entry attempts succeed.
The truck began driving by House and Senate office buildings Wednesday morning. For the next seven days it will follow a loop from the Capitol to the White House.
The ticker is also on the homepage of America First Policies.
“Our ticker is a real-time reminder of the ticking time bomb happening at our border, and a wake-up call to Congress that the time has come, quite literally, to build the wall,” said Erin Montgomery, communications director for America First Policies.
“Every 48 seconds, another person attempts to illegally cross our southern border. That’s 1,809 people per day. How many illegal crossings will it take before Congress follows President Trump’s lead and puts the safety and security of the American people first?” she added.
The website ticker and mobile billboard are part of a $1.1 million advocacy campaign by America First Policies to secure the border. The nonprofit has also launched national television and digital ads that show the consequences of an unsecure border.
