Report: Wall could cost more, take longer and underperform
There’s a lot of red surrounding President Donald Trump’s call for a Southwest border wall.
Instead of well-considered immigration policy, the wall is red meat to his red base. But for independent government examiners, the wall could fall on the red side of Uncle Sam’s accounting ledger.
A new report by the Governmental Accountability Office raises serious issues about poor Trump administration planning. That could lead to increased costs. This comes in the wake of repeated Trump threats to shut down the government if Congress does not provide the wall funding he wants. The recent volley of threats, by the way, made no mention of Trump’s promise that Mexico would pay for the wall. Cost estimates have been all over the place, including $21.6 billion by the Department of Homeland Security and $70 billion by Senate Democrats.
GAO found that DHS’ strategy did not fully analyze projected costs or properly follow the acquisition process.
“DHS plans to spend billions of dollars developing and deploying new barriers along the southwest border. However, by proceeding without key information on cost, acquisition baselines, and the contributions of previous barrier and technology deployments, DHS faces an increased risk that the Border Wall System Program will cost more than projected, take longer than planned, or not fully perform as expected,” GAO said in a report released Monday.
“Without assessing costs when prioritizing locations for future barriers, CBP does not have complete information to determine whether it is using its limited resources in the most cost-effective manner and does not have important cost information that would help it develop future budget requests. Without documenting plans to require CBP to follow the DHS acquisition process for the San Diego barrier segment, DHS may not establish cost, schedule, and performance goals by which it can measure the program’s progress.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement that the administration “is rushing the construction of the President’s completely unnecessary border ‘wall’. In moving too fast, they have ignored necessary and established acquisitions protocols ...”
“To be blunt,” added Thompson, who, along with others, requested the GAO study, “this Administration has no clue what it is doing and must be held accountable. Since DHS picked locations for the President’s wall before taking into account effectiveness or cost, any more spending on Trump’s wall would be a giant waste of taxpayer money and may not provide any measurable security benefit ... we now know for certain that effectiveness and considering the full range of costs were not part of the decisionmaking process.”
The White House and Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, RTexas, declined to comment.
DHS agreed with GAO recommendations to better analyze costs associated with the wall and to follow acquisition requirements. A letter to GAO from DHS said Customs and Border Protection “is following best practices in evaluating costs, budget, and financial impact” for the wall.
Not so, according to GAO’s findings. Though his own administration has not fully done its job in preparing for the wall, Trump is willing to shut down the government if his Republican-controlled Congress doesn’t fund it, while blaming Democrats. We’ll know at the end of September, with the close of the current fiscal year. The notion that the president of the United States would advocate closing the government, denying millions of Americans services, seems like parallel-universe craziness.
While shutting down the government is the opposite of public service and an anathema to practically all federal employees, Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, fears no evil. The council represents Border Patrol agents. It and the National Ice Council, representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, are the only federal unions that endorsed Trump’s candidacy. Both are part of the American Federation of Government Employees, which strongly opposed him.
He agrees “100 percent” DHS has not done proper studies but added: “I believe they will be able to make the case, if they try.” Like Trump, but surprisingly for a federal employee not named Trump, Judd thinks a government closure would be worth it to get border wall funding. “If a government shutdown would give us the border security that is necessary, I’m absolutely for it,” he said by phone. Law enforcement personnel continue working during a partial shutdown, so his members would not be affected to the same extent as other feds. Employees furloughed if funding lapsed over a border wall dispute probably would be paid retroactively, leading Judd to compare furloughs to vacation days — workers being paid for days not worked.
“Would I be in favor of shutting down government parks for a week in order to get border security,” he said. “Yes, I would.”
Thompson strongly disagrees. “Shutting down the government would be irresponsible,” he said by email, urging “congressional Republicans not to give into their President’s demands for his boondoggle border wall.”