FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, sent a letter to President Biden on Friday urging him to halt the auctioning off of border wall materials next week.
Ernst’s letter comes just days after the Biden administration announced it would be bypassing dozens of federal laws to construct a border wall in South Texas, as thousands of migrant crossings persist in that region.
“I am pleased you relented on your campaign promise that ‘there will not be another foot of wall constructed on [sic] my administration,’” she wrote. “While this acquiescence to commonsense is welcomed, I urge you to build the wall using some of the materials you have on-hand, rather than auctioning them off for pennies on the dollar.”
“If your administration is seeking to build more wall, I would encourage you to do so. In fact, I know somewhere you can get barrier materials on the cheap! Your own government is auctioning off materials—specifically purchased by the last administration to construct a border wall—starting at a bargain bid of $5 a lot,” she wrote.
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However, Biden said he is not reversing course on his stance. On Thursday, he suggested the decision to build the wall was because money was already appropriated for the wall.
“I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money, but they didn’t. They wouldn’t. And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
“I can’t stop that,” he added.
Biden also said, “No,” when asked by a reporter if a wall is effective in preventing illegal entries.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who initially expressed an “immediate need” for a wall, also clarified Thursday that its construction represented no change in the administration’s position.
“I want to address today’s reporting relating to a border wall and be absolutely clear,” he said in a statement. “There is no new Administration policy with respect to border walls. From day one, this Administration has made clear that a border wall is not the answer.”
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The funds Biden referenced were appropriated under former President Donald Trump, who made constructing a border wall a major point of his successful 2016 presidential campaign.
Reports of Biden quietly auctioning off border wall materials circulated after “square structural tubes” were captured in a storage yard in Arizona over the summer. The tubes were made available for auction on GovPlanet, an online auction platform operated by the publicly traded Canadian company Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Ernst said: “We all know walls work, but seven million illegal border crossings later, the Biden administration is still being dragged kicking and screaming to address this crisis.”
“For years, President Biden sent a clear message that he does not take border security seriously, but I have worked to hold him accountable for wasting taxpayer-funded border wall parts and to use them to actually secure our border. Now that he is finally building more of the wall, he must put these materials to use and end this crisis at our southern border, instead of auctioning off our already purchased materials for pennies on the dollar,” she said.
Fox News’ Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
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