Comer & Oversight Republicans Probe Biden Administration’s Conflicting Border Wall Construction Policy

WASHINGTON – House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Oversight Republicans today are calling on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to provide documents and information to help inform Congress and the American people what the Biden Administration’s position is on utilizing border barriers to secure the border amidst historic levels of illegal crossings. On President Biden’s first day in office, he issued a proclamation halting construction of the border barrier system and recently sold off materials procured by the government to build border barriers. Official statements in the Federal Register reveal the Biden Administration conceded that there is an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States.

“President Biden and his Administration’s failure to secure the border is a dereliction of duty. Halting all ongoing and critically needed construction on border barriers while illegal crossings break record after record is detached from reality. The Department of Homeland Security has finally admitted there is a need to construct physical barriers along the border, only after the Biden Administration sold off unused border wall materials that sat idle since President Biden’s first day in office. While the White House continues to live in a fantasy land, Oversight Republicans have and will continue to fight for the American people and hold this Administration accountable for their failures along the border,” said Chairman Comer.

On October 5, 2023, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security published in the Federal Register a notice of determination that “[t]here is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas pursuant to sections 102(a) and 102(b) of [the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, as amended]. The decision to resume border barrier construction contradicts President Biden’s campaign assertion in August of 2020 that “[t]here will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration.”  It also appears to contradict current Administration policy.

Read the letter to Secretary Mayorkas here.