Massive amounts of border wall supplies continue to waste away along the nation’s southern border after the Biden administration has canceled contracts with construction companies selected to build it.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin appeared on the network Monday morning and revealed that stockpiles of steel beams were left near the U.S.-Mexico border in south Texas.
Melugin said he had been told by a federal official that enough steel was purchased to build more than 100 miles of border wall in the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo, Texas, but very little of it was used.
“Live with @BillHemmer & @DanaPerino this morning discussing the Biden admin’s decision to cancel the border wall contract. A federal source tells me steel for over 100 miles was purchased for wall in RGV & Laredo, but only about 14 miles were completed before Biden stopped it,” Melugin tweeted.
Live with @BillHemmer & @DanaPerino this morning discussing the Biden admin’s decision to cancel the border wall contract. A federal source tells me steel for over 100 miles was purchased for wall in RGV & Laredo, but only about 14 miles were completed before Biden stopped it. pic.twitter.com/pseT3kUo6A
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 11, 2021
“What does it look like to not build the border wall? Our drone is overhead in Pharr, TX at one location where steel for the border wall has been baking in the sun & going to waste since January,” Melugin said.
“Tens of millions of dollars worth of steel here already paid for,” he added.
NEW: What does it look like to not build the border wall? Our drone is overhead in Pharr, TX at one location where steel for the border wall has been baking in the sun & going to waste since January. Tens of millions of dollars worth of steel here already paid for. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/RTdiMTyqAh
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) October 11, 2021
President Joe Biden’s former Border Patrol chief, Rodney Scott, said last week that the administration was paying up to $5 million per day to contractors to not complete former President Donald Trump’s southern border wall.
Scott recounted to Fox News anchor Bret Baier that on his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order halting construction on the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Many of those projects today are just still on hold, so we’re paying contractors. For a while, it was almost $5 million a day between [the Department of Defense] and [the Department of Homeland Security] to not build the border wall,” Scott said.
“There are stacks and stacks of border wall panels,” he added, along with “hundreds of miles of fiber optic cabling” and “hundreds of cameras” that are “just sitting. There is no action being taken.”
“That money is just trickling away to those contractors for not doing work each day,” Scott said.
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A report released by Republicans serving on the Senate government operations and border management subcommittee in July put a firmer number on the cost of Biden’s order to end construction.
The minority staff report determined the president’s decision had cost taxpayers between $1.837 billion and $2.087 billion to that point.
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“In January 2021, DOD contractors in charge of overseeing wall construction along the southern border received $10 billion in taxpayer money, which had been obligated toward wall-related projects,” Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, ranking member of the subcommittee, said in a news release.
“By the end of June, the Biden Administration has wasted roughly 20 percent ($2 billion) of the $10 billion meant to build the wall to pay contractors to watch steel rust in the desert.”
The report said the cost stood at $3 million per day at the end of June.
Trump was able to get 453 miles of a new primary and secondary border wall built before Biden took office and was in the process of constructing 211 more miles in the Border Patrol’s San Diego, El Centro, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso, Del Rio, Laredo and Rio Grande Valley sectors.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.