A major border town official said it's "ridiculous" the Biden administration is selling off materials purchased for President Trump's border wall, both wasting money and letting drugs flow into the country.
"I don’t think [President Biden] could stomach installing any more of Trump's wall," Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines told Fox News. "That’s what he vowed not to do."
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GovPlanet, an online auction marketplace specializing in military surplus, has sold 81 lots of steel "square structural tubes" since April, according to the New York Post. It's reaped about $2 million in sales, and its auction schedule picked up in May after a GOP-led bill demanded border wall construction either restart or the supplies be provided to state governments.
"It’s ridiculous," Lines said. "We have completed sections sitting on the ground ready to be installed."
The Trump administration directed $16 billion for border wall construction during the 45th president's time in office, according to the Congressional Research Service. But Biden halted construction just after his inauguration in January 2021, leaving the wall unfinished.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey agreed in December 2022 to remove shipping containers his administration used to plug gaps in the border wall after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he'd have new barriers erected. But Lines said there's been little progress, even though the Biden official said nearly two years ago he'd fill some of the heavily trafficked holes.
"Mayorkas promised us 20 months ago that he would fill nine of 11 gaps," Lines told Fox News. "Since then, it’s estimated that more than 350,000 people have crossed through Yuma and an estimated 5,000 children have come through unaccompanied. We feel the impacts of fentanyl and other narcotics being trafficked by the same cartels."
Since October 2022, over 23,000 pounds of fentanyl have been seized along the southern border, according to Customs and Border Protection. That already exceeds the 14,400 pounds taken for the entire previous fiscal year.
The Biden administration built a fence to fill some border wall gaps, but Lines said the administration has nonetheless failed to secure the border.
"This administration chose to spend more money with a new design that is inferior," he said. "They've done less in nine months then it took the guys under Trump to accomplish in three weeks."
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Some families living along the border wall gaps hired armed security guards after migrants repeatedly came into their homes, Lines previously told Fox News. Additionally, two Yuma farmers said migrants crossing through the gaps would pass through their fields, contaminating their crops and threatening the nation's food security as a result.
"It will only get worse with Biden's policies," Lines previously said. "He needs to reassess."
