President Joe Biden and his administration have spent approximately $2 billion to halt border-wall construction according to a report released by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.
Former President Donald Trump and his administration had initially allocated $10 billion for border-wall construction.
In only six months, Biden has wasted over 20% of the initial funding to suspend or terminate construction contracts.
Suspension costs and contract termination are expected to take another 12 to 18 months, meaning that massive costs will continue to be accrued for the foreseeable future.
At the current rate, that could mean up to $8 billion of the original allocation would go wasted. However, the federal government shows no signs of slowing the pace of spending taxpayer dollars. In fact, the amount continues to increase by millions of dollars daily.
According to the report, the Biden administration is paying contractors at least $3 million per day to guard steel, concrete and other materials in the desert while U.S. Customs and Border Protection has found more than 1.1 million migrants along the southwestern border this fiscal year—more than any year for two decades.
Nonetheless, Biden and his officials are in no rush to make any decisions.
According to the report, “President Biden ordered his Administration to ‘study’ the border wall construction for 60 days and report back to him with recommendations.”
Yet, the study group has apparently made little progress. It has been 180 days since the 60-day study commenced.
“As of the drafting of this report, no study findings have been released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the Biden Administration,” the report continued.
Lankford, the ranking minority member of the Government Operations and Border Management Subommittee on the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Commitee, lambasted Biden for the foolishness of his plan in a press release announcing the report.
“It is absolutely absurd that Americans are paying contractors to guard metal gates that President Biden refuses to install because he wants to ‘study’ the wall,” he 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.
Making matters worse, 180,000 immigrants attempted to cross the border in June alone.
Many of those illegal immigrants appear to have been released in red middle-American states.
And as the crisis has deepened, Biden has opted instead to pay construction workers to stand around near of many tons of concrete and steel.
“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 lamented.
Further complicating matters, immigrants have been transporting mass amounts of drugs—including fentanyl, a highly addictive opiod, often imported from China, that has now polluted American cities.
The Border Patrol confiscated over 500 lbs. of fentanyl in June alone.
Lankford said he will block every pending or future Homeland Security nominee from getting confirmed until the crisis is resolved and the wall is complete.
