Trump’s farewell tour includes a stop at the border wall in Alamo, Texas on Tuesday

Updated at 3:45 p.m. with a reaction at the border.

WASHINGTON – Eight days before reluctantly stepping down, President Donald Trump will travel to the South Texas border on Tuesday to tout the partial construction of the massive wall he has pledged to deliver – far more than the critics wanted, far less than he wanted, and nothing he funded by Mexico.

At last count, some 452 miles had been built. About 12 miles of it runs along segments of the border without any barriers before. The rest replaces the shorter, less robust barrier.

The project has cost $ 15 billion to date, barely $ 4.5 billion provided by Congress. Trump embezzled the rest of the military budget when lawmakers opposed full funding.

It’s not quite the “big beautiful wall” he promised in the 2016 campaign when he suggested that almost the entire 1,954 mile border be closed. By the time he leaves office, he will be about 40% closed. President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to stop construction, although he won’t dismantle everything the Trump administration leaves behind.

Trump has not been seen in public since Wednesday morning, when he stirred up the passions of a crowd that would soon be rioting on Capitol Hill.

With more and more calls for resignation or impeachment, he will travel to Texas unaccompanied by allies who are usually eager to greet him on landing. Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick will be in Austin on Tuesday for the opening day of the 2021 Legislature.

White House spokesman Judd Deere said on Sunday that Trump would travel to Alamo, Texas, just east of McAllen and near the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, “to mark the completion of more than 400 miles of border wall – a promise made, a promise kept – and his administration’s efforts to reform our broken immigration system.

While incomplete, and more of a tall fence than the wall Trump envisioned – from the start he bowed to the advice of agents on the grounds that it’s better to see what’s on the other side side – it is undoubtedly more difficult to defeat than what existed before.

The design aims to slow down migrants and smugglers long enough for the border patrol to arrive. For the system to work as intended, oversight and manpower will need to be stepped up, and it’s unclear what the appetite of Biden and the Democrat-controlled Congress will be. Even critics of the wall admit that tearing it down or abandoning it would send the wrong signal to smugglers and uninvited migrants.

Democrats and many Republicans viewed the wall as a mess – an unnecessarily costly monument to Trump’s desire to signal the United States to tighten security and a scar on an environmentally sensitive landscape.

The Mexican public and leaders took the wall as an affront and never budged in their refusal to pay for a project they opposed.

Trump and his supporters viewed the wall both as an effective deterrent against smuggling and illegal border crossing, and as a powerful symbol that uninvited migrants are not welcome.

Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, fought on the appropriations committee to prevent the budget maneuvers that squeezed billions of dollars from the Pentagon on his favorite project. The wall was one of the many reasons he was happy Biden won the election.

“The fact that the president goes to the southern border to see his failed attempt to create a border wall shows exactly where his priorities lie,” he tweeted.

Hidalgo County, which includes Alamo, has tightened restrictions related to the pandemic in recent days to ease overcrowding in hospitals. Hospitalizations have quadrupled in the past two months in the lower valley.

The project used 681,000 tons of steel and nearly a billion cubic meters of concrete, according to figures from the Department of Homeland Security, for the dike wall along the Rio Grande’s accounts and the steel bollards of 30 feet which are more difficult to climb or cut. than the old fence.

While Biden will not dismantle Trump’s physical legacy, he will lift strong restrictions on refugee admissions and a host of other immigration policies put in place by executive order.

Robert Peña, director of the El Paso Republican Alliance, has praised Trump’s trip to the Alamo and expects support for the outgoing president to remain long after his term ends on January 20.

“Half the country voted for him,” Peña said, adding that the visit should remind Biden “not to open the floodgates. We must ensure the security of the country. “

South Texas is a great choice for this tour.

The Rio Grande Valley remains the area most frequented by the American border patrol.

Trump, who has kept Texas in the GOP column, made up for Biden’s overwhelming advantage among Latino voters in urban areas by outperforming previous GOP nominees along the border.

Community organizers were mounting an anti-Trump campaign, including a petition urging the mayors of Alamo and McAllen and the Hidalgo County Sheriff to demand that the White House drop the visit.

Pro-Trump supporters were organizing Sunday to greet the president at the airport and at the border wall.

“Everyone is thrilled to have it,” said Mayra Flores, a Hidalgo County GOP organizer behind flag-waving caravans known as “Trump trains.” “You saw the huge support he got from south Texas, although it surprised some.”

Trump insisted that work continue during the pandemic and since his defeat. Biden aides and congressional allies have tried to determine which contracts can be scrapped and how much that will cost taxpayers in penalties.

Five days before the election, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf traveled to McAllen to mark the completion of 400 miles, predicting he would reach 450 miles by New Year’s Eve.

Supporters of tighter border security have applauded Trump’s willingness to finish as much as possible, though they say that won’t be enough when Biden takes office.

As vice president during Obama’s day, Biden was tasked with working with Central America to find ways to reduce the poverty and crime that led to massive northward migration.

Its border security plans focus on improving screening at points of entry, where most illegal drugs enter the United States, as well as increasing investments in surveillance technology and working with Mexico and the countries of Central America.

The wall was Trump’s iconic promise in the 2016 campaign, and his relentless pursuit led to clashes that didn’t rock many in his own party. A 35-day government shutdown ended in January 2019 without Trump getting the $ 5.7 billion in wall funding he demanded.

Border correspondent Alfredo Corchado and editor Dianne Solis in Dallas contributed to this report.