Just ahead of plans by the Department of Homeland Security to solicit industry for prototype solutions for wall structures along the U.S. southern border, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Tuesday requested Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to have the department brief a Senate panel on the acquisition and funding plans for a border security wall.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wants DHS Secretary John Kelly to her on a presidential order suspending immigration to the U.S. from certain countries.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“Securing our border is a key national security issue, and it’s irresponsible for the Department of Homeland Security to move forward with a border wall without laying out how they’ll pay for it or conducting a cost-benefit analysis,” McCaskill, who is the ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “As I saw firsthand during my trip to the border last month, making our border more secure is a complicated, important task, and we need to ensure that our efforts use taxpayer funds responsibly.”

In February DHS issued a notice saying that it plans to issue a solicitation on March 8 for the design and build of several prototype wall structures near the U.S. border with Mexico. The notice said that detailed requirements would be included in the solicitation but for planning purposes the department expects the wall to be about 30-feet tall, poured concrete, and include anti-climbing and tampering features.

In her letter to Kelly, McCaskill listed 16 items that she wants information on including funds that have been appropriated inside and outside of DHS to pay for the prototyping phase of the border wall, programs that may be cut or eliminated within Customs and Border Protection and DHS to pay for the wall, and the life-cycle cost estimate for the initial and follow-up acquisitions.

Reported cost estimates for the border security wall that the Trump administration wants along the southern border have ranged has high as tens of billions of dollars. The U.S. has roughly 650 miles of wall, fencing and other physical barriers already in place along portions of its southern border but Trump wants to replace some of the existing barriers and potentially add another 1,300 to 1,400 miles of physical structures aimed at staunching the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S.

McCaskill also wants a copy of the independent government cost estimate for the prototype phase of the wall program.

POLITICO on Tuesday reported that the White House Office of Management and Budget shared its budget priorities with federal agencies last week and that the DHS budget request for FY ’18 would by $43.8 billion, a 6 percent hike over FY ’17. The DHS request would prioritize immigration crackdowns, the border security wall and border security technology, the report said. It also said that the Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency would be bill payers to support the emphasis on border and immigration security.