Texas lawmakers have stopped funding a border wall project four years after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced that the state would be the first to build its own barrier.
As it stands, only a small fraction of the Texas-Mexico border now has a wall. The decision to stop funding the project came in the last few hours of this year’s legislative session, The Texas Tribune reported. The future of the project remains uncertain, as Texas officials have suggested that the federal government could restart the project; however, it’s unclear whether this will actually occur.
During President Donald Trump’s first stint in the White House, his administration built about a third — 21 miles — of what the state was able to build in the same amount of time.
Only eight percent of the 805 miles that the state has identified for construction are finished, costing taxpayers more than $3 billion. The 30-foot-high wall costs roughly $28 million per mile to construct.
The wall has plenty of gaps that the migrants and smugglers can walk around, and it’s mostly concentrated on ranches in rural areas, where unlawful crossings are less likely to take place, The Tribune noted last year. Similarly, the paper found last year that the wall would take roughly 30 years and more than $20 billion to finish.
Lawmakers finished the state budget earlier this month, allocating $3.4 billion for border security. The budget lead writer, Houston Republican State Sen. Joan Huffman, told The Tribune on Thursday that none of that funding will be for the wall. The money will primarily go to the Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard, which are responsible for apprehending migrants.
“It’s not that we don’t think it’s an ongoing need to secure the border,” Huffman told The Tribune. “It should have always been a function of the federal government, in my opinion, and that wasn’t really being done.”
The governor’s spokesperson told the paper that the Trump administration’s efforts to secure the southern border have allowed Texas to revise its own work.
“Texas will continue to maintain a robust presence with our federal partners to arrest, jail, and deport illegal immigrants,” the spokesperson said.
The state has built 65 miles of wall. Parts of the border are naturally difficult to cross, or they already have a federal wall or fence in place.
Republicans in charge of the legislature defunded the wall without holding any public debate on the issue.
While the state agency in charge of constructing the wall, the Texas Facilities Commission, said in January that its goal was to build at least 100 miles of wall before the end of next year, it currently doesn’t have the funds to do so.
The project manager of the wall program stated in April that out of the $3 billion in funding from preceding years, only enough funding remained to finish 83 miles of wall. State officials have said that segments under construction will continue being built, but no new projects will be started.
Border security experts noted to The Tribune that the wall segments appeared to be being built where the state was able to acquire land rather than where it would be most effective, due to resistance from landowners to having wall segments constructed on their property. Most of the segments have been built on ranches in rural areas. In contrast, experts have stated that the wall would be most useful in urban areas, where individuals crossing unlawfully can easily enter vehicles or buildings.
Twenty-four percent of property owners that the state approached rejected having wall built on their land, as of March, making up 41 miles of wall space that the state wanted to get hold of.
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