GOP platform includes Trump's wall

By Jonathan Easley 
July 12, 2016
The Hill

 Republicans crafting a party platform in Cleveland quietly voted Monday in favor of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, ratifying one of presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump’s most controversial proposals.

The language added to the party’s platform does not say anything about who will pay for the wall. Trump has repeatedly promised he will make Mexico pay for it, though the Mexican president has said there is “no way” that will happen. 

The platform will express support for a “border wall” that must cover “the entirety of the Southern Border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.”

The measure, proposed by Trump supporter Kris Kobach, the secretary of state from Kansas, was approved unanimously in the subcommittee meeting on Monday.

In the full committee hearing on Tuesday, the new language did not attract any opposition or amendments. That policy plank of the party’s platform was adopted without even passing debate about the wall or immigration reform.

The 2016 Republican Platform Committee has strengthened the wording in its policy document to match the presumptive nominee’s campaign promise.

The 2012 platform stated that “the double-layered fencing” that was authorized by Congress in 2006 but never completed “must finally be built.”

The 2016 working draft of the platform called for “construction of a physical barrier” — language that Trump supporters saw as being open to alternate, and weaker, interpretations of his suggested wall.