For Brian Kolfage, a triple amputee severely wounded serving in the Iraq War and founder of a crowdfunding campaign to build a border wall, it’s not a matter of if Trump’s much-touted and controversial border wall will be built – it’s when.
“So many people don’t know we are moving ahead with this project. When we start breaking ground soon, it is going to go gangbusters again,” Kolfage told Fox News. “We don’t feel President Trump is going to get what he wants, and we are going to be the only option for people to have border security and border protection.”
Kolfage catapulted into the national limelight late last year after launching a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to aid the White House endeavor. But after falling short of the $1 billion goal, Kolfage came under fire over concerns about the GoFundMe rules and regulations.
However, he claims that he was advised by supporters of the cause not to just give up and return the donated funds – but to carve out another path focusing on going forward with private construction, which has involved officially establishing a 501(c)4 nonprofit entitled “We Build the Wall, Inc.”
Kolfage said that, to date, their largest donors have come from border states.
“They are from everywhere, but the biggest donors are surprisingly from California,” he pointed out. “Then Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and then from Florida. It’s Democrats and Republicans.”
The campaign revival comes at a time when the U.S. government is preparing for unprecedented numbers of migrants to cross the southern border either illegally or make a border asylum claim, a senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told Fox News on Monday. It is being projected that the swell of migrants could reach up to 180,000 between March and May, reported the Wall Street Journal, more than three times the number recorded in the same time period last year.
A key part of their strategy, for the time being, is centered on “community engagement” rather than explicit fundraising.
“We aren’t really going to push it hard. We think once we start breaking ground it is going to start fundraising itself when people start seeing progress,” Kolfage observed. “If we can start making progress in a month or two, it will speak for itself and drive the process forward.” – MORE