The Trump administration is planning a massive election-year push to build hundreds of miles of new border wall and will use $7.2 billion in Defense Department money to do it.

President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border last year, using his authority to repurpose about $6.7 billion in Pentagon funding for border security.

The new billions, added to the old, could be enough to erect 885 miles of border barrier in coming years, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The new influx of cash would mean the president has secured $18 billion in all for a wall on America's southern border, defying both Democrats and moderate Republicans who confidently declared after the 2018 elections that they had tied his hands.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Monday that it hoped to build 576 miles with the money Trump moved around in 2019.

President Donald Trump, pictured Monday night at the College Football Playoff National Championship game, will repurpose another $7.2 billion in Pentagon funding this year to add to his border wall project

Trump campaigned on a pledge to wall off the U.S. from Mexico and the money he is shifting around the Defense Department could enable him to build more than 800 miles in all

So far the administration has 101 miles of steel bollard wall to show for its efforts, but 100 of those replaced inferior barriers that predated the president's time in office.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-plans-to-shift-additional-7-2-billion-for-border-wall-11578970110

A little more than half of this year's redirected Pentagon money, $3.7 billion, will come out of military construction funds. The rest is money Congress earmarked for counternarcotics efforts.

Congress, led by hard-charging liberals in the House, capped the president's border-wall spending at $1.38 in regular annual budget appropriations in 2019 and 2020.

That left Trump with few options to make progress toward fulfilling his signature campaign promise in time for this year's election.

The Department of Defense declined comment on the latest round of financial gear-shifting.

But it comes just a week after a federal appeals court allowed the administration to move $3.6 billion from Pentagon construction funding to the wall effort.

The U.S. Supreme Court in July lifted a stay that had prevented the Pentagon from redirecting $2.5 billion from counternarcotics programs to the border barrier.

Trump gloated on Twitter about last week's victory, calling it 'Breaking News.'

'The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just reversed a lower court decision & gave us the go ahead to build one of the largest sections of the desperately needed Southern Border Wall, Four Billion Dollars. Entire Wall is under construction or getting ready to start!' Trump wrote.

President Trump and first lady Melania are pictured arriving for the College Football Playoff National Championship game between LSU and Clemson on Monday night

Most of the wall Trump's administration has erected is in places where inferior barriers already stood when he took office, but billions of dollars will allow him to show more progress before November's election

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement that the overturned lower court ruling, issued Dec. 10, was 'an illegitimate nationwide injunction' that a single judge hoped to enforce on the entire country.

'This is a victory for the rule of law. We are committed to keeping our borders secure, and we will finish the wall,' Grisham added.

The president made turning back a sea of migrants from the border his signature campaign issue, and has continued to push it as he seeks re-election. In 2015 and 2016 he pledged that Mexico would pay for it all.

The Mexican government has refused to write a check.

Trump has repeatedly framed his wall project as a way to stop illegal immigration and narcotics trafficking. Democrats, both in Congress and on the campaign trail seeking to replace him, have characterized it as a waste of money and nationally divisive.