The federal government has announced plans to return $2.2 billion allocated to fund border wall construction. This comes following President Joe Biden’s proclamation, made on his first day in office, to halt the redirection of money for the wall.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have developed plans in accordance with the Biden administration’s initiative. As listed in a press release from The White House, they include: cancelling wall projects with diverted military construction funds, returning those funds to their original appropriated purposes, and addressing safety and environmental issues resulting from border wall construction.
In addition, the administration is calling on Congress to cancel funds provided to the DHS for border barrier projects in order to allow the resources to be used for more modern and effective border management measures. According to the release, the DHS is legally required to use the funds consistent with their appropriated purpose. The DHS has, thus, announced that it will responsibly use the funds by addressing urgent life, safety, and environmental issues resulting from the wall construction. They’ve reportedly already started work to repair the compromised Rio Grande Valley flood protection system and to remedy soil erosion along a 14-mile wall segment in San Diego.
The Trump administration had planned to spend over $15 billion on the wall’s construction, diverting more than $10 billion of those funds from military projects. 52 miles of the wall have been built, with some portions of it costing up to $46 million per mile, according to the release.
The DOD announced that 66 deferred projects spread across 11 states, 3 territories, and 16 countries will receive returned funds.
While construction of Trump’s border wall is seemingly terminated following the Biden administration’s plan, the project isn’t completely dead. Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, has recently announced that he plans to expand the wall along the state’s border with Mexico. He said that $250 million would be set aside from the state’s general revenue to begin the project and that a program manager would be hired to determine the total cost of the project and the length of the wall. Additionally, Abbott stated that the wall would be built on a combination of state land and donations of private land and be partly funded by donations.
Further details regarding Abbott’s plan and whether he has the power to build the wall are unclear.
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