Texas plans to award a contract to finish the completion of the southern border wall as early as this week, according to the Washington Examiner.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced earlier this year that the state would raise its own money to complete the more than 700 miles of border wall along Texas’s border with Mexico since President Joe Biden shut down the project at the start of his term.
According to the Texas Facilities Commission, the state has more than $1 billion it is ready to allocate to the wall’s construction.
The commission has selected engineering firm Michael Baker International of Pennsylvania and design firm Huitt-Zollars of Dallas to take on the project.
The commissioners must vote to finalize the decision before the state can officially award the contract. The commissioner plans to hold this vote by mid-September, according to the Examiner.
Both of the companies chosen to complete Texas’s border wall helped border wall projects under previous presidential administrations.
Though the state legislature has pledged to spend about $750 million on the wall, it has also raised a significant amount of money for the project through private donations. As of August, donations to the project had soared to more than $54 million, according to Abbott’s fundraising website.
“We are grateful for the outpouring of support from across our state and the entire country as Texas fills the gap created by President Biden and steps up to secure our southern border,” Abbott’s press secretary, Renae Eze, said in a statement.
“Cartels and smugglers are profiting off the chaos as they overwhelm and divert our nation’s resources so they can smuggle drugs, weapons, criminals, and other contraband across our border,” Eze added. “While the Biden Administration may not prioritize the sovereignty of our nation or the safety of our people, Americans clearly do.”
