More than $100 million in taxpayer-funded border wall materials have been discarded after President Joe Biden shut down construction of the wall when he first took office.
NEW: Our drone is now over a second location in RGV where massive piles of steel meant for the border wall have been sitting since Biden halted construction in January. I’m told there are over 20,000 panels between both spots worth roughly $120 million. Already paid for. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/ZfFAqsexru
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 11, 2021
A Fox News drone captured footage of nearly 10,000 steel panels, which could build up to 100 miles of wall, rusting in Pharr, Texas, where they have been since January, when Biden signed an executive order suspending all contracts for the wall’s construction.
“Keep in mind, taxpayers have already paid for this,” Fox News reporter Bill Melugin noted. “It’s bought and paid for and nothing is happening with it.”
Additional footage from La Joya, Texas shows where fencing along the border abruptly ends, leaving a wide open space for illegal immigrants to enter.
“Basically, it’s useless,” Melugin said. “We watch these migrants just walk around it all the time. It’s not doing anything, and the border agents out here are having to run around left and right as runners are constantly coming through.”
On top of the wasted materials, the Biden administration is spending millions of dollars every day for border contracts that he put on hold.
According to former Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott, the administration is paying contractors up to $5 million per day.
Another report from Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., estimated that Biden has spent about $2 billion in total to halt the wall’s construction.
“President Biden is paying professional construction contractors to babysit metal to the tune of $2 billion and counting, while at the same time we’ve seen a 20-year high number of migrants crossing our open border,” Lankford said.
“Stubbornly refusing to spend money approved for the wall is not ‘executing’ the law. It’s ignoring the law and ignoring the very real national security concerns posed by illegal entry across our very open southern border,” he added.
