Border wall could cost $70 billion, says Senate Democrats' new report
A new report from Senate Democrats puts the cost of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border at $70 billion, nearly three times any previous government estimate.
The report from the minority party, which has been critical of President Donald Trump's signature issue, arrived just as the project's cost was about to become the week's most-debated issue: Trump said he wanted funding for his wall included in any deal to keep the federal government funded.
Trump reversed course, indicating he's willing to wait until September to ask Congress for a down payment on the border wall.
Still, when the debate does arrive, critics will likely turn to the report from Democratic staff of the U.S. Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. It criticizes not only the soaring cost of such a massive infrastructure project, but it also blasts what it calls the administration's "lack of planning."
Here are the main takeaways from the report, and other things we know about the overall project:
How did they come up with the $70 billion figure?
Senate Democrats based the $70 billion price tag on budget information provided by Customs and Border Protection and from the agency's call for submissions to build prototypes of the border wall.
In his budget appropriations for 2017, Trump asked Congress for $999 million to build or replace 62 miles of fencing in San Diego and Texas' Rio Grande Valley. That comes out to about $16.1 million per mile of wall. However, for the following year, the administration requested $2.6 billion to build 71 miles of new barriers along the Rio Grande Valley, as well as the Tucson and El Paso areas.
That comes out to about $36.6 million per mile. They estimated the total cost at that price to be $66.9 billion.
The request for proposals that CBP issued in late February seeking prototype designs for a border wall anticipated the costs of the prototypes would range between $200,000 and $500,000. According to the requests for proposals, the designs would measure 30 feet long. Using the lowest figure as the base cost, the report's authors calculated building the entire wall would cost at least $64 billion.
However, the report also acknowledged that there is no reliable cost estimate. An internal document from the Department of Homeland Security put it at $21.6 billion, and said it would take up to three and a half years to complete.
Will there be additional expenses?
While the report used numbers from the current administration, it also analyzed other likely expenses: maintenance and land seizures.
In order to build parts of the wall, the government will have to continue eminent-domain battles with private land owners, particularly in the Texas borderlands. For years, the federal government has seized land to build fencing in south Texas, but have stepped up efforts recently.
The report noted that CBP has not provided information on ongoing eminent-domain cases. But it notes the federal government has so far spent $78 million to purchase land and that many of the 400 previously initiated land cases are still ongoing.
The report stated that according to CBP, acquiring land to build a border wall could take between 12 and 24 months.
Senate Democrats also used data from CBP to calculate maintenance costs, which they estimate at $150 million per year. These costs cover "access roads, gates, light posts, drainage systems, acres of vegetation and other attendant infrastructure," the report stated.
They calculate this number by using the amount that CBP currently spends maintaining the existing 654 miles of border barriers, $55 million, and applying it to the remaining sections without fencing or structures in place.
How's the wall coming along?
Since Trump indicated he's willing to wait a few months to ask Congress for funding, his administration will not be able to begin work right away. However, that doesn't mean he has to wait until then to take action.
Customs and Border Protection is reviewing design submissions for wall prototypes. More than 230 companies expressed interest, but it's unclear how many actually submitted designs. A spokesperson for CBP said the agency would not release any information until companies are awarded contracts to build prototypes.
"We hope to begin construction by the end of the summer," DHS Secretary John Kelly told CNN on April 21. "Clearly, we're not going to build a wall in an afternoon."
It's unclear if Kelly was referring to construction on the wall prototypes or the planned fencing expansion in Texas. However, the timeline to choose designs, build them and test the prototypes is already behind schedule.
The solicitation process was slated to last three months, with quick deadlines to narrow the field of applicants, refine design submissions, and award contracts. Construction was slated to begin on June 22 and last about 30 days.
But the process has been mired in confusion, and the initial deadline to submit designs was pushed back three times. Initially, CBP said it would take two weeks to review submissions. However, the review process is now in its third week, with no indication of when it'll be complete.
A CBP spokesperson said the agency is committed to reviewing all the submissions properly and said it was not married to a timeline.
Where will the testing take place?
New details from Customs and Border Protection provide a better look at the area where the federal government hopes to build several 30-foot-long prototypes and test them.
The site is in a remote area on the outskirts of metro San Diego, just east of the Otay Mesa border crossing. But it's also within the urban sprawl of Tijuana's eastern neighborhoods, just on the other side of the border.
Photos show the construction site to be somewhat flat, and satellite images show the location is at the point where the hilly countryside gives way to the San Ysidro Mountains. A few miles east, the border fence ends due to the mountains' ruggedness.
CBP said it chose to build and test the prototypes there because the federal government already owns the land. It also said current fencing there is susceptible to breaches, citing more than 800 incidents a year. This would allow the agency to test the effectiveness of the designs.
The requests for proposal call for a wall that is ideally 30 feet tall, and extends 6 feet underground. The government sought designs that would make the barrier hard to breach and with anti-climbing mechanisms so smugglers would be unable to scale it.
The prototypes, however, will only be 10 feet tall, and CBP will be unable to test those features except to see how long it takes to breach them.
What would available funding pay for?
Although it remains to be seen if Congress will allocate funds to begin construction of the wall, the Department of Homeland Security already has an idea of where it would like to begin building or replacing existing barriers along the border with Mexico.
In its 2017 and 2018 budget requests, DHS identified four sections as priority areas for construction: the Rio Grande Valley and San Diego, and on a lesser scale the Arizona and El Paso border areas.
The greatest need, identified in the 2017 budget appropriations, is in the Rio Grande Valley, where there has been a huge spike in apprehensions. The surge in arrivals is mainly due to Central American families and unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the U.S. The area also remains one of the main corridors for marijuana and cocaine trafficking.
Under the 2017 revised budget, the $999 million for DHS would cover construction of 28 miles of levee walls along the Rio Grande, just south of the more densely populated areas in that region. An additional 6 miles of physical barriers would go up a few miles west in Starr County, a more remote area that has been ideal for drug and human smuggling.
Remaining funds from the 2017 request also would go toward construction of a 14-mile enforcement zone, a sort of no-man's land between a primary and secondary barrier, next to the Pacific Ocean.
If approved, the $2.6 billion under the 2018 budget would continue the expansion of border fencing along Starr County in south Texas. The money would cover the construction of 47 miles of new border barriers.
The additional money would also fund construction of 24 miles of new barriers along the Arizona border, and possibly El Paso. DHS singled out reinforcing the Arizona border in particular, to thwart drug gangs and improve the safety of border agents.
The barriers would "deny drug trafficking organizations (DTO) cross-border access and thereby prevent armed conflicts between U.S.-based rip crews and armed mules with the Sinaloa Cartel," DHS said.
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