Related: Trump Silenced Border Wall Critics with This Stunning Update

If that sounds ambitious, the goal is to reach 450 miles by the end of 2020.

“Right now we’re at a pace of about a mile a day. And we’ll see that continue to go up,” said Jonathan Hoffman, Pentagon chief spokesman, during a press conference on Thursday.

When President Donald Trump traveled to the southwest recently to see the current progress on the border wall, he was pleased with what he observed.

“Now, the wall still, obviously, has a ways to go, but we’re building it at a breakneck speed,” Trump said on Wednesday during a press conference in San Diego.

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Hoffman also said Thursday that the majority of the $2.5 billion in funds made available for the wall that came from military counter-drug money is being used accordingly.

The $2.5 billion goes toward the states of New Mexico, Arizona, and California specifically to reinforce the U.S.-Mexico border.

“That is going to build 129 miles of wall — all of that money is on contract as of — I think there’s $3 million left — and that’ll be by the end of next week. All of that money is on contract,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman also noted border projects will begin to draw from another money source, namely the $3.6 billion that Defense Secretary Mark Esper transferred from military construction for border projects in early September.

In conjunction with these plans, “the Department of the Interior is temporarily surrendering roughly 560 acres of land that sits on the U.S.-Mexico border in order for the government to build more border wall,” The Daily Caller reported on Thursday.

“Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced Wednesday that his department will transfer jurisdiction of approximately 560 acres of land to the Army for three years,” the outlet also noted.

“The Army will build about 70 miles of new barrier along the U.S. southern border on that land.”

Hoffman said things are moving according to schedule.

“Right now we’re getting the first of those contracts ready to go … We have property from DOI that needed to be transferred over for a number of those so we got to work through that process, and it’s going to take months to get that,” Hoffman said.

“But our goal is that by the end of next year, we will have completed over 450 miles of wall construction all-told, across the federal government,” he said.

In 2020, campaign promises made by President Donald Trump in 2016 will be brought up by many parties.

When it comes to “building the wall,” it looks like a Trump promise kept so far.

This piece originally appeared in The Political Insider and is used by permission.

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