The Pentagon said on Wednesday it would pull funding from 127 Defense Department projects, including schools and daycare centers for military families, as it diverts $3.6 billion to fund President Donald Trump’s wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Schools for the Children of U.S. military members from Kentucky to Germany to Japan will be affected. A daycare center at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland – the home of Air Force One – will also have its funds diverted, the Pentagon said.
Trump declared a national emergency earlier this year to access the funds from the military construction budget. In March, the Pentagon sent to Congress a broad list of projects that could be affected.
A Pentagon official said in a briefing that the department was given a “lawful order” by Trump to divert the funs. She said the Pentagon is working closely with Congress an its allies abroad to find funding to replace money diverted for the wall, but that there aren’t “any guarantees” that those funds will come.
The wall was a central promise of Trump’s 2016 campaign and remains central to his immigration policies s he aims for re-election in 2020.
Some $30 million in funds for an equipment building at Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona will be diverted to pay for the wall.
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