President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to shut down the government this September if he doesn't get a chunk of funding for the wall project, which would likely cost $25 billion to complete. | Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images Trump to boost request for border wall funding by half-billion dollars

President Donald Trump will boost by a half-billion dollars his funding request for his plan to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico, seeking at least $2.2 billion for the controversial project in fiscal year 2019, multiple GOP sources said.

The Trump administration requested $1.6 billion for the project earlier this year, but White House officials are going to increase that amount to at least $2.2 billion and possibly more, the congressional and administration officials said.


Trump has repeatedly threatened to shut down the government this September if he doesn’t get a chunk of funding for the wall project, which would likely cost $25 billion to complete. The omnibus spending bill enacted in March included $1.6 billion for border security.

But Democrats remain opposed to the border wall, and House GOP leaders are in danger of losing control over their moderate members due to a fight over immigrants known as Dreamers.

A group of House Republicans has signed onto a Democratic effort to force a vote on legislation related to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gave certain protections to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

Trump ended the DACA program, potentially exposing Dreamers to deportation, though the administration and congressional leaders in both parties have repeatedly said they want an agreement to avoid that. So far, no DACA deal has been reached.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is opposed to the DACA discharge petition, but he has privately pushed for a bipartisan DACA fix that includes the border wall and other security measures.

