Pentagon awards $1 billion in contracts to build President Trump's border wall

The Pentagon announced Monday that the first of contracts to build the border wall proposed by President Donald Trump have been awarded and construction will begin shortly.

And it's almost $1 billion in funding so far.

The announcement named SLSCO Ltd., a company from Galveston, Texas, as the major recipient of $789 million for the construction of "border replacement wall" in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. The contract is to be completed by October 2020.

Barnard Construction Company from Montana was also awarded $187 million by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct "primary pedestrian wall replacement" in Yuma, Arizona. That project is also estimated to be completed by October 2020.

A spokesman for the Department of Defense told The Hill in a statement that "30-foot bollard fencing and a five-foot anti-climb plate" would be constructed in the Santa Teresa contract. For the Yuma contract, "18-foot bollard fencing and a five-foot anti-climb plate" would be constructed.

The construction would be the first since Trump announced the declaration of a national emergency at the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Many of his critics have decried the action as unconstitutional since he admitted that he was only doing so in order to avoid the opposition from Congress.

The president had threatened to shut down the border to trade in order to force Mexico to do more to stop illegal immigrants from attempting entry into the U.S., but he later backed off on the threat.

Here's the latest on the border wall battle:

'Our country is full': Trump speaks at U.S.-Mexico borderwww.youtube.com