Border securityLawmakers criticize DHS’s spending on border security projects
Lawmakers last week raised concerns about what they described as DHS undisciplined spending on various birder security projects. The hearing was held a week after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report citing DHS as a “high risk” for government waste. The DHS Acquisition Accountability and Efficiency Act, which aims to improve the department’s discipline, accountability, and transparency in acquisition program management, will be considered by the full House after the Committee on Homeland Security gave its recommendation to the act last week.
Representative Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, last Wednesday raised concerns about border fence construction during a hearing on government waste in DHS. The hearing was held a week after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report citing DHS as a “high risk” for government waste. Legislators agree that the department’s many missions, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), make it difficult to create uniformity within the department, but DHS must control its spending habits.
The Brownsville Herald reports that O’Rourke noted two border projects as examples of poor financial judgment by DHS. One of the projects, SBINet, which intended to place advanced monitoring technology on towers along the border to improve security, was generously funded despite a stream of revelations about the shoddy technology used and the ineffectiveness of the system. “Generally, I think that spending within the Department of Homeland Security is out of control,” O’Rourke said, saying his assessments were supported by countless GAO reports which show a history of DHS launching projects without full knowledge of the complete costs and without setting well-defined goals.
The SBINet project cost roughly $1 billion before then-DHS chief Janet Napolitano shut it down in 2010. “What is very concerning to me is I don’t know how much DHS has learned from that very costly solution,” O’Rourke said.
DHS’s current $500 million plan to place integrated fixed towers along Arizona’s border with Mexico has been compared to the SBINet project.
O’Rourke also criticized DHS’ $5.5 million project to place a half-mile border fence at Hart’s Mill, a historic crossing point near El Paso. O’Rourke represents the sixteenth district of Texas, which covers El Paso, and he claimed that border crossings at Hart’s Mill have recently decreased. “Why fence a half-mile section when there’s no demonstrable need?” he asked, noting that he discussed the fence with former DHS leaders and was told that the project was too far along to be shut down. “$5.5 million may not sound like a lot, but $5.5 million here, $5.5 million there — soon it adds up and becomes real money,” he said.
Many Democrats in Congress who represent border districts insist that the cost of building and maintaining a border fence has little return on investment compared to other expenses. “That money could go to hire customs officers, which we desperately need along the border,” O’Rourke said. Hiring additional customs officers would create jobs for local economies.
Toward the end of the hearing O’Rourke blamed DHS contractors for the runaway border spending. “Ultimately the contractors were writing the scope of the contract,” he said. “The agency itself no longer had control, which is why it turned out to be such a fiasco.”
The DHS Acquisition Accountability and Efficiency Act, which aims to improve the department’s discipline, accountability, and transparency in acquisition program management, will be considered by the full House after the Committee on Homeland Security gave its recommendation to the act last week.
