The Interior Department is transferring about 500 acres of public land to the Pentagon in order to construct about 70 miles of President Trump’s border wall, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The land was previously monitored by the Bureau of Land Management and will now be overseen by the U.S. Army. The 560 acre expanse includes 213 acres in New Mexico, 301 acres in Arizona and 44 acres in San Diego, California.
The move is all part of Trump’s efforts to expedite the construction of his border wall before the 2020 election. Earlier this month, the Trump administration took $3.6 billion from military construction funding to devote toward the wall.
The land transfer has drawn ire from environmental groups who are concerned about nearly 100 threatened or endangered species that would be impacted by the construction of the wall.
