House Republicans are furious with President Biden’s administration over reports that it’s rushing to sell off steel meant for the border wall with just over a month until President Trump takes office.
Congressman Andy Biggs shared a screenshot from a website used to auction off materials from federal or military agencies, GovPlanet, of steel beams available for resale in Arizona.
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He added that it was “infuriatingly out of touch” that the material was being sold “at bottom dollar” following the “mandate delivered by the American” people in the November 5 election.
Building a border wall was a centerpiece of Trump’s 2016 campaign, though he was opposed at every step by Congressional Democrats who refused to authorize funding. Nevertheless, wall construction continued into the Biden Administration.
The House Oversight Committee shared Mr. Biggs’ post and denounced Democrats for selling off unused pieces of border wall even though they had campaigned on what the Oversight Committee called “a fake border bill.”
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Representatives for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.
Democrats in the Senate tried twice to pass a border bill earlier this year. The legislation was proposed as an answer to Republican demands that Congress pass legislation to curb illegal border crossings in exchange for approval for more aid to Ukraine.
A bipartisan group of senators worked to develop the border bill. However, months of negotiations fell apart when the details of the bill were released, and Trump and conservatives argued that it would not solve the border crisis.
Conservatives said President Biden already should be preventing people from crossing the border illegally and that the bill was too liberal in its approach to closing the border.
The bill would have given the president the authority and discretion to “shut down” the border after the seven-day average of illegal border crossings surpassed 4,000 a day. And it would mandate that the border be “shut down” once the average hit 5,000. The border would not be able to reopen until crossings dropped by 75 percent of the triggering average. It also included a limitation on how long the authority could be used, with the limit getting shorter each subsequent year.
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Trump campaigned this year on finishing the construction of the border wall, and he is expected to issue an executive order on his first day in office to accelerate the ongoing work.
It’s not clear if the steel now being sold for cheap could still be used to build the wall or if it’s gotten too rusty.
The sale of the border wall parts also comes as the Biden administration has been engaged in a spending spree on left-wing projects and issues that Trump campaigned against, such as a $6.6 billion loan to the electric vehicle maker Rivian and $100 billion in clean energy grants.
* Original Article:
https://www.nysun.com/article/house-gop-denounces-biden-selling-border-wall-steel-bottom-dollar-final
