Reading the fine print: Claims that Trump Has Not Built Any Wall

The Washington Examiner and many other news outlets claim that "Trump has not built a single mile of new border fence after 30 months in office." How do we reconcile this with news reports from earlier this month that "CBP Completes 50 Miles of New Border, 50 More Underway" (See also this Newsweek article from July 2, 2019)? Or this complaint from a May 2019 article that "Trump Waives 41 Environmental Laws to Build 100 Mile Arizona Border Wall"? By careful reading.

      What the article is reporting is that "[t]he Trump administration has not installed a single mile of new wall in a previously fenceless part of the U.S.-Mexico border...." (Underline added). So the complaint here is not that sections of wall have not been completed, but that the wall has, so far, only replaced sections of crappy, ineffective fencing.

Update (7/23/2019): Mark Morgan, the Acting Chief of Customs and Border Protection, says essentially the same thing:

Mark Morgan: Lou let me tell the American people the facts. Right now there has been miles and miles of new wall being built. Right now 52 miles at strategic locations in El Centro, El Paso, San Diego. The list goes on. 52 miles have replaced old, dilapidated, ineffective wall. If you ask the people of the border patrol, each mile is absolutely new wall. Right now under construction is another 50 miles of replacement border of old dilapidated plus 13 linear new miles. In addition to that Lou, we have another approximately 100 miles of new wall that has been approved funded and we’re getting ready to construct.