As the Biden Administration auctions off unused parts of former Pres. Donald Trump’s unfinished southwest border wall, Democrat Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) has introduced a bill to spend $84 million to create a “Northern Border Coordination Center.”
The Biden Administration is scurrying to sell off the used parts before the Republican-controlled House signs off on the Senate-passed, bipartisan Finish It Act, which would require the federal government to either extend the border wall using the remaining panels – or provide them to states, like Texas, that want and need them for their own border defense measures.
Sen. Peters’ “Northern Border Coordination Act” (S. 2291) would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to spend $84 million of taxpayers’ money to create a “coordination center” on the northern border, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) cost estimate published Monday.
The Center would “oversee northern border security activities, serve as a training location and testing ground for new technology, and support counter-unmanned aircraft operations” and “require CBP’s Air and Marine Operations to maintain quick deployment capabilities and impose various reporting requirements,” the CBO reports.
Meanwhile, the southwest border crisis rages on, as hordes of illegal aliens continue to surge into the U.S.:
- In July, the number of illegal crossings into the U.S. at the southern border increased by 33%.
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered 1.7 million migrants on the southern border in fiscal year (FY) 2021,
- In FY 2022, migrant encounters jumped to record 2.4 million.
- The 1.8 million migrants encountered through the first nine months of the current fiscal year is on pace to set a new all-time high.