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The 2 Percent: Border Wall GoFundMe Falls Far Short, Will Refund Donations

© REUTERS / Carlos Garcia RawlinsPeople take part in a gathering in support of the migrant caravan in San Diego, U.S., close to the border wall between the United States and Mexico, as seen from Tijuana, Mexico December 10, 2018
People take part in a gathering in support of the migrant caravan in San Diego, U.S., close to the border wall between the United States and Mexico, as seen from Tijuana, Mexico December 10, 2018 - Sputnik International
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Money raised by a GoFundMe campaign started by Brian Kolfage, a triple-amputee Air Force veteran, that was intended to raise $1 billion for a wall along the US-Mexico border will be refunded to donors upon request, after the online cash aggregate noted that contributions fell staggeringly short of the intended goal.

According to GoFUndMe spokesperson Bobby Whithorne, the border wall online campaign's founder promised donors that all donations would go toward building the wall along the southern border proposed by US President Donald Trump — if the campaign met its $1 billion target, cited by the Insider. 

In this Nov. 20, 2018, file photo, Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump, arrives for a ceremony to pardon the National Thanksgiving Turkey in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington - Sputnik International
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The campaign barely managed to break 2 percent of its goal, however, bringing in less than $20 million, and the amount will be refunded to donors upon request.

"As a veteran who has given so much, three limbs, I feel deeply invested to this nation to ensure future generations have everything we have today," Kolfage, an Iraq War veteran, said in a December 2018 statement announcing the online donation regime.

"President Trump's main campaign promise was to BUILD THE WALL," Kolfage asserted, adding, "this wall project needs to be completed still," cited by Fortune magazine

In a Friday update on the GoFundMe campaign page, Kolfage wrote that his team spent "countless hours over the holidays reviewing all issues pertaining to the construction of a southern border wall."

"Unanimously," he declared of his advisors at the time, "we have come to the conclusion that […] we are better equipped than our own government to use the donated funds to build an actual wall on the southern border." 

US President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 4, 2019. - Sputnik International
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Following low interest in his now-failed plan, however, the new GoFundMe update adds that donations will be "promptly refunded" to donors.

Currently, nine of 15 federal departments, as well as dozens of other agencies and federal programs, have closed or decreased services because the president has refused to sign a $5.6 billion budget bill that does not include spending for his wall — a key campaign promise.

In addition, some 800,000 federal employees have been on furlough or are being forced to continue working without pay, costing the US economy an estimated several billion dollars, Sputnik previously reported.

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