U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently began testing eight barrier design prototypes for the U.S. border wall with Mexico, but the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns they are doing so without an analysis of cost.
Topography, land ownership, and other factors all play a part in cost. The GAO report found that the CBP is focusing more heavily on how it will prioritize locations for deployment instead of the costs to do so. While CBP and Border Patrol have a methodology for prioritizing future barrier deployments, these rely on factors, such as illegal entry traffic data and analysis of operational feasibility. Those factors lack the means to make decisions most cost-effective.
GAO was asked to review these efforts and examine how CBP evaluated potential designs, the Department of Homeland Security’s process for identifying and assessing locations for future barrier deployment and how DHS is managing the acquisition of the Border Wall System Program. They analyzed planning documents, interviewed relevant officials, and conducted on-site visits.
GAO recommended DHS analyze costs associated with future barrier segments and include that information in future planning. They also recommended the Under Secretary for Management should document plans that require CBP to follow DHS’s acquisition life cycle for a planned secondary barrier deployment in the San Diego sector.
The report was conducted following a January 2017 executive order, which directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to immediately begin planning, designing, and constructing barriers along the southwest border.