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Without question, the most controversial issue of the 2016 campaign was then-candidate Donald Trump’s pledge to “build a big, beautiful wall” along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

Indeed, the totality of Trump’s immigration policies — a border wall, stricter internal enforcement, deportations, ending sanctuary cities — was attacked mercilessly by the Hillary Clinton campaign and her lamestream media lapdogs.

And yet, political analysts believe that’s how billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump became President Donald Trump: His “American First” immigration policies resonated with an electoral majority of voters.

Since he was inaugurated, however, Trump has experienced a number of setbacks in effectuating his immigration policies as Left-wing groups filed lawsuits in cherry-picked federal courts, which blocked many of his early initiatives.

That would include the centerpiece of those policies: The famed border wall. But over the past three years, after a series of congressional and legal victories, the wall is being built, mile by mile, just like the president promised.

And this week, another benchmark was reached: The addition of the long-awaited border wall cam.

“Looking for the latest updates about the border wall system? Check out our new webpage, which gives a first-hand look at construction of the border wall system and its impact on our national security,” U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott tweeted.

Looking for the latest updates about the border wall system? Check out our new webpage, which gives a first-hand look at construction of the border wall system and its impact on our national security. Visit https://t.co/1P24vPbOcu to learn more. pic.twitter.com/RIwJJZABBJ — Chief Rodney Scott (@USBPChief) April 23, 2020

The Washington Examiner reported:

The package on the page is more than promised. It includes an edited loop of the construction, the latest facts and figures about the $15 billion wall project, and an updated interactive map of the activities.

As the news site reported earlier, the system — which is the brainchild of presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner — will go live this week on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website as the milestone of 164 miles of new wall is reached.

“People will see that President Trump is coming through on his promises,” a top aide told the Examiner.

But while seen by most as a means of curbing illegal immigration, in fact, the border wall has a broader purpose: Dramatically reducing the influx of deadly drugs including opioids — the other epidemic our country has been battling now for a lot longer than coronavirus.

In March 2019, Jim Carroll — the president’s ‘drug czar’ — said during a visit to a rehab center in Kentucky, “So that wall will undoubtedly stop the flow of drugs in those locations, force people to the ports of entry, where there’s more law enforcement located.”

Of course, there are critics. The Associated Press reported:

But U.S. statistics, analysts and testimony at the New York City trial of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman show most hard drugs entering the U.S. from Mexico come through land border crossings staffed by agents, not open sections of the border. David Shirk, a University of San Diego political science and international relations professor, said by phone Monday that a wall would only lead to “more creative solutions to moving drugs into the country.”

In other words, drugs are going to get into the country anyway so a wall isn’t worth the expenditure or the effort.

Is that true?

“If you’re a drug trafficker coming up from Mexico, you’re not going to stop trafficking drugs just because (of) the ports of entry,” Carroll said. “They will then move between the ports and that’s why we need a wall there. But obviously they’re coming through in massive numbers as it is now. But this is clearly needed to save American lives.”

In addition to the wall and the beefed-up presence at ports of entry, the administration is also using the military to staunch the flow of drugs.

Trump has ordered the Pentagon to deploy additional military assets including U.S. Navy warships to the Caribbean and elsewhere “to prevent drug cartels and ‘corrupt actors’ like Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to smuggle more narcotics,” Reuters notes.

So the border wall, one of the president’s cornerstone immigration policies, is being built for a number of reasons: It’s part of a broader national security strategy that Trump also pledged to improve during the 2016 campaign.

“We agree on the importance of ending the illegal flow of drugs, cash, guns, and people across our border, and to put the cartels out of business,” Trump said during a campaign speech in Phoenix, in September 2016.

And now, Americans will get to see part of that strategy in action, live, via the new border cam.