Stopping Border Wall Construction on Inauguration Day Would Save the U.S. Billions

A construction crew works on a fallen section of the US-Mexico border wall in Mexicali, Mexico. STR/Getty Images

Now that a Democrat is set to move into the White House, the Republican Party, on cue, is deeply concerned with government spending. One place, the incoming Biden administration might be able to help them out in pinching pennies is with Trump’s pet project—the wall. The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been meeting with the Biden transition team about possible next steps when it comes to the farcical barrier and estimates, if President-elect Joe Biden pulls the plug on the whole thing on Inauguration Day, the U.S. government would save $2.6 billion.

That’s only a fraction of the $15 billion that the Trump administration was able to divert into the border wall project, a sum the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said is enough to erect 738 miles of new fencing. Most of that money came from previous Department of Defense appropriations destined elsewhere; roughly a third of the funding came from Congress. Even abruptly halting construction, something Biden has promised to do, would come with costs. There will actually about $3.3 billion remaining unused come late-January but, in some cases, completing certain aspects of the contracted work would actually be similar in cost to calling it off altogether.

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“While the Biden administration will have the ability to terminate or modify contracts with the construction firms building the barrier, [-] companies will be able to bill the government for ‘demobilization’ fees that cover the withdrawal of crews, materials and equipment from the border. Those fees are projected to add up to about $700 million, according to the estimates,” the Post reports. “Of the $1.6 billion remaining in Department of Homeland Security money for the project—just one of the funding sources—the government would be able to save $1.1 billion by completing [some] ancillary features, estimates show, compared with $1.46 billion by freezing the project entirely.” Army Corps officials are currently surveying how and when it can legally end existing contracts in anticipation of a potential change in border policy under the new administration.

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