Public funds at risk on border wall project
Last week, President Trump visited San Diego to review prototypes of his long-awaited border wall. If recent history is any guide, it is not just the height and width of these models that should have been scrutinized, but also what safeguards are in place to protect against fraud and waste of taxpayer dollars by the contractors and officials entrusted with building the wall.
A decade ago, the Department of Homeland Security and Hidalgo County embarked on a joint project to repair aging levees along the Rio Grande, while also building a border fence at key sections of the Mexico-U.S. border. $174 million was invested into the project. Homeland Security received a 15foot vertical concrete wall, flanked in places with an additional 18-foot metal fence. In January, Texas’ U.S. Sen. John Cornyn heralded the project as a model on which Trump’s border wall should be based, calling it a “win-win.”
Despite such outward appearances, it seems it’s more of a win-lose. According to a lawsuit brought by Hidalgo County, the project has been rife with fraud, waste and corruption. The lawsuit details “a pattern of racketeering activity,” including contractors paying bribes to receive lucrative contracts and a contractor who did little work on the project but instead served as “a kickback vehicle and money laundering machine.” No estimates have been given on the amount of taxpayer dollars that may have been misspent. (Portions of the dispute now appear to be headed to federal court. Last month, after a state court judge dismissed some of its claims, the county voluntarily dismissed its bribery and racketeering claims and it is poised to refile them in federal court.)
What’s more, all of the alleged malfeasances took place under Homeland Security’s watch. The agency had committed to Hidalgo County that it would have “substantial involvement” in the project. In a joint investigative report on this project, ProPublica and the Texas Tribune have highlighted big lapses in the agency’s oversight. Homeland Security reportedly was unaware that the contractors who won lucrative subcontracts for the project were related to Godfrey Garza Jr., the Hidalgo County official who negotiated the initial deal. Apparently, Garza added some nice kickbacks for himself, including a 1.5 percent commission for each dollar spent on the project. Thanks to a whistleblower who sent Garza’s employment contract directly to Homeland Security, the jig was up, or so everyone thought. Homeland Security took no decisive action for years.
None of this bodes well for the American taxpayers. And the same taxpayers might suffer a similar fate for Trump’s great wall fund. According to recent estimates from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the wall is expected to cost $18 billion for 316 miles of new fencing and reinforcing 407 miles of existing barriers. While we wait to see who exactly will pay for this wall, lawmakers should condition any funding on increased oversight of how the monies are spent. As the failures at Hidalgo County show, current oversight by Homeland Security is sorely lacking and will need to be greatly increased and re-invigorated.
As previous large-scale public works projects have proven, whistleblowers are some of the most important tools federal agencies have to safeguard taxpayer dollars and successfully prosecute unscrupulous contractors. In the Big Dig, a $15 billion project that built a central artery/tunnel under Boston, whistleblowers were essential in exposing fraud and redressing failures in government oversight of the project, which resulted in a fatality due to a ceiling collapse.
The United States has not seen a public works project of the wall’s scale since the Panama Canal. Such a singular project will require singular vigilance to ensure public funds are not misspent. Whistleblowers, empowered by federal, state and local false claims acts, can be the government’s eyes and ears. With $18 billion in spending earmarked for 716 miles of border wall, whistleblower watchdogs could be the government’s first line of defense against fraud.