Trump’s border wall spending creates a billionaire family

The Fishers have won more than US$8 billion in contracts from the Department of Homeland Security. Read more at straitstimes.com.

The biggest beneficiary so far of the Trump administration’s roughly US$171 billion (S$218 billion) immigration spending blitz is a third-generation family business that specialises in sand and gravel. 

Since President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law on July 4, Fisher Sand & Gravel has won more than US$8 billion in contracts from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to design and construct segments of Mr Trump’s long-touted wall on the southern border.

The awards account for nearly one-fifth of the money DHS has agreed to spend over that timeframe, during which its three largest contracts – ranging from US$1.5 billion to US$1.7 billion each – all went to Mr Fisher.

The surge in spending has made the Fishers the first known billionaire family born out of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

It has been a long time coming for Mr Tommy Fisher, the company’s president, who inherited the business from his father and has spent the better part of a decade evangelising his wall plan.

During Mr Trump’s first term, Mr Fisher became a regular pitch man on right-wing networks, insisting his wall would be built faster, sturdier and cheaper than the competition’s.