Jared Kushner has reportedly been put in charge of delivering 450 miles of Trump's border wall by 2020 - a task that looks close to impossible

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Jared Kushner has reportedly been put in charge of delivering 450 miles of Trump's border wall by 2020 - a task that looks close to impossible

mnuchin trump kushner

Yuri Gripas/Reuters

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  • Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, has been put in charge of delivering construction of his promised wall along the US-Mexican border, The Washington Post reported.
  • According to the Post, Kushner wants to speed up the forced purchase of private land to allow the construction to go ahead.
  • He is said to be aiming to complete 450 miles, a little less than a quarter of the 2,000 mile border, by December 2020.
  • Building a wall along the US-Mexican border was Trump's signature campaign promise in 2016, but very little new building has taken place.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, has been put in charge of expediting the building of the wall on the US-Mexico border.

It is another task in his broad portfolio of White House responsibilities, which already include securing peace in the Middle East and reforming the criminal justice system.

Current and former US officials told The Washington Post that Kushner has been holding twice-weekly meetings with top officials aimed at driving construction forward.

He is said to be aiming to deliver 450 miles of new wall by the end of the year 2020, which would cover a little less than one quarter of the 1,954-mile border between the US and Mexico.

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This goal would require a striking increase in the pace of construction since Trump took office in January 2017.

Work so far has focused on reinforcing existing wall, and the first building of new barriers only started in October of this year, 22 months after Trump's inauguration.

Trump's plans for the wall stalled in Congress, forcing the president to dramatically scale back the project.

Kushner's stewardship of the wall, the Post said, involves twice-weekly meetings with officials about contractor data, detailed plans for the wall, and funding. He also relays the president's views to the group.

Trump wall

Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while participating in a tour of U.S.-Mexico border wall prototypes near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, California.

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The Post said that Kushner is also reportedly seeking to pressure US Customs and Border Protection and US Army Corps of Engineers to expedite the forced purchase sale of private land to make space for the wall.

The White House did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the report.

Among criticisms of Kushner has been the charge that he lacks the experience to be effective in his varied responsibilities in the White House, which include securing peace between Israel and Palestinians in the Middle East and criminal justice reform.

One official told the publication Kushner took a "much more hands-on role in figuring out, mile by mile, how to get more wall up. It didn't help put wall up faster and cheaper. His interventions actually just created more inefficiency in the process."

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