Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) will pitch legislation Tuesday that would turn over unused border wall construction materials to states willing to shore up segments of the frontier barrier ahead of Title 42’s expiration later this week.
The BUILD It Act would force the Biden administration to hand over the wasted materials to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
The unused materials are costing the federal government $130,000 per day and nearly $50 million per year to maintain, according to a cost estimate the Army Corps of Engineers provided to Ernst and other Senate Republicans.
The materials themselves are estimated to cost roughly $250 million.
The legislation comes as the Department of Homeland Security is bracing for a surge of migrants crossing the southern border when the public health protocol expires Thursday.
“With Title 42 ending this week, Biden’s border failure will go from crisis to catastrophe,” Ernst, 52, told Mister Truth.
“While Biden left border materials to rack up dust and dollars, I’m taking action with a simple solution to end the taxpayer-funded waste and stop the unprecedented flow of illegal migrants. It’s time to finish the job and build the wall!”
Last week, President Biden authorized the deployment of 1,500 active-duty US soldiers to the border. The troops will focus on logistical duties, but will also be armed if needed for self-defense.
Typically, the US has deployed National Guard members for border-related issues.
US Customs and Border Protection recorded around 1.7 million migrant encounters on the southern border in fiscal year 2021 and 2.4 million in 2022.
More than 1.2 million migrant encounters have occurred in the first six months of fiscal year 2023, according to the agency.
Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee learned of the exorbitant border costs in March, when ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said in a letter to the Pentagon that members were “disturbed to learn the Department of Defense is paying private landowners to store border wall materials procured under the Trump Administration instead of fortifying the southern border with those materials.”
Reports surfaced in October 2021 that more than $100 million worth of taxpayer-funded border materials were wasting away in Texas after Biden halted wall construction when he took office.
At around the same time, some Border Patrol agents were working to plug holes in the unfinished wall segments with stray parts and old tires left behind by federal contractors.
The Biden administration last July quietly approved construction of a separate border segment between Southern California and Mexico, replacing a “deteriorated barrier” near San Diego.