Taxpayers are coughing up about $6 million per day for the construction of the southern border wall to sit idle.
President Biden’s 60-day pause on border construction contracts didn’t stop federal money from flowing to the border wall, a senior Department of Homeland Security official told Breitbart. Contractors are instead paid for rental expenses or cost of ownership while their equipment sits idle, costing the government $6 million per day as a deadline looms for the Biden administration to decide which projects will continue.
The story comes as Biden has faced an increasingly intense border crisis, with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledging the United States was “on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.”
The number of unaccompanied minors detained at the border has also ballooned, causing the administration to open up new facilities as permanent facilities face crowding issues exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities now have more than 14,000 unaccompanied minors in custody, some of which have been in crowded conditions for more than the 72 hours allowable by law.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION SURGE POPS BIDEN’S POPULARITY, 67% SAY IT’S A ‘CRISIS’
Biden has been left playing catch up, at times lashing out at his own team for not acting fast enough to stem the crisis.
“He was disappointed that we hadn’t gotten answers from other agencies faster or that (the facilities) wouldn’t be ready for children faster,” one senior administration official said. “He made it pretty clear that there were times when he didn’t think we were moving fast enough.”
But now, the 60-day pause on wall construction is set to expire on March 21, with the administration remaining silent on its plans for continued construction.
The wall, a key promise of former President Donald Trump, remains unpopular with many Democrats. Biden has made good on his promise to reverse much of Trump’s immigration enforcement legacy, but the crisis already threatens to engulf his administration as it attempts to ramp up his first 100 days agenda.
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“These are all self-inflicted wounds,” a DHS official said of the crisis.
