The Trump administration’s claim to the “most secure border in history” has some Senate Republicans asking why DHS needs billions for a border wall.
The Department of Homeland Security has asked Congress for $45.6 billion to build hundreds more miles of fencing at the southern border as part of a sweeping tax and spending bill that passed the House and is being debated in the Senate.
“The border is the most secure border we’ve had in the history of the United States of America,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on May 20. “But what we need to do is address the areas that are still vulnerable.”
President Donald Trump faces challenges as he looks to push his policy agenda in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow majority and GOP senators are working to balance their support for border security with concerns about rising national debt.
The House version of the funding bill is predicted to add an estimated $3.8 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.
Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, said during the committee hearing that at an estimated $14 million a mile, DHS could build more than 3,000 miles of border fence.
The U.S.-Mexico border only runs 1,950 miles from California to Texas; roughly 700 miles of the border is already fenced off.
“I’m asking you and the department to sharpen your pencil on that wall request,” he told Noem. “It’s more than you need.”
Noem suggested to the committee that the cost-per-mile was less, roughly $12 million per mile.
Committee chairman Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, said even if DHS wanted to wall off another 1,000 miles – unlikely due to extremely rugged and mountainous terrain in some parts – the agency would need $12 billion, not $45.6 billion.
“We’re off here by a factor of three or four,” Paul told Noem, asking for more detail. “We can’t just throw another $30 billion out there and say, ‘Things cost a lot.'”
More: Kristi Noem botches definition of ‘habeas corpus’ at Senate hearing
Illegal border crossings have plunged during the first four months of the Trump administration, accelerating a decline that began during the final year of the Biden administration.
U.S. Border Patrol reported about 8,400 migrant encounters at the southern border in April, down from nearly 129,000 encounters during the same month a year ago.
Noem said the funding would also go toward technology at the border where, she said, one in three surveillance cameras don’t work currently and there are stretches that go un-patrolled.
“The truth is there are portions of this border where we still don’t know what happens there,” she said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Republican senators push back over Trump’s $46B border wall ask
