Cost of securing U.S. borders may reach $30 billion
DHS IG Richard Skinner says the project to make U.S. borders more secure may range in cost “from $8 billion to $30 billion”; Rep. Mark Souder (R-Indiana), a critic of the September Boeing SBInet contract, agrees, saying about the staimated cost of securing U.S. borders: “The bottom line is there isn’t a number”
There is a growing emphasis in the United States on securing the nation’s borders, and within that emphasis there an emphasis on using advanced technology for that purpose. Point is, electronic monitoring and other steps for enhancing surveillance along the southwestern border may well cost 15 times the initial $2 billion estimate, DHS inspector general Richard Skinner says. “Early forecasts and estimates of the program’s value range from $8 billion to $30 billion,” Skinner said in an audit report.
The estimate pose new questions about the very viability of efforts by the administration and Congress to revamp and upgrade immigration policies. Only two months ago a contract for building a virtual fence consisting of new cameras, surveillance technology, and improved procedures for border agents was awarded a team led by Boeing. The first phase of the program is planned for a 28-mile stretch along the Arizona border near Tucson and is due to be completed this coming June.
In September Presdient Bush signed into law a project to build 700 miles of additional physical border fencing, but Skinner’s figures exclude the costs of that project. DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said only the money for the Tucson-area phase of the project, $67 million, has been set aside from agency funds so far. “I’m not sure where his numbers are coming from,” Knocke said of Skinner’s estimate. He said the agency was open to listening to Skinner’s ideas on how to strengthen oversight of the program. “We’ve been very clear from the very beginning,” Knocke said. “We were going to build a little and prove it before we build more.”
A Boeing spokeswoman said that the company was “on a contract for $67 million at this time,” with three one-year options.
Bush and Congress have approved $1.2 billion for the border security program, but $950 million of that cannot be spent until DHS provides Congress with a report on how it will spend the money, Knocke said. Two days ago Skinner told the House Homeland Security Committee’s management subcommittee that the type of contract awarded to Boeing for the border program creates additional risks that, “unless properly managed, threaten achievement of cost, schedule, performance, and, ultimately, mission objectives.”
-read more in this AFX report
