The Biden administration will spend nearly $300 million revamping the Department of Homeland Security’s headquarters in Washington with money from the Inflation Reduction Act.
In a joint press conference on Thursday, the DHS and General Services Administration announced three major additions to the department’s headquarters in southeast Washington and touted them as beneficial to its 260,000 employees and the taxpayers.
ROMNEY DOMINATES 2024 SENATE FIELD AS HE WEIGHS REELECTION RUN IN UTAH: POLL
“We are, through all of that, not only helping DHS achieve its important mission but also making sure we’re using the best sustainable building practices to do that,” GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said. “We are not wasting any time. Groundbreaking is going to be happening on all of these projects next year in 2024.”
DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement will leave its long-standing office near the National Mall and head across the Anacostia River to DHS’s main campus.
It is also a sign the embattled immigration agency will not be abolished any time soon despite liberal lawmakers and activists’ pleas to do away with it.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will leave its headquarters in northern Virginia.
The government will undertake a third project at the DHS headquarters and install a parking garage and security checkpoints across the campus, which used to be the site of St. Elizabeths Hospital. Construction of the hospital began in 1852, and buildings on the 176-acre federally owned land are historical landmarks.
“These new projects alone will house 6,500 DHS personnel, more than doubling the current number of DHS employees who work at St. Elizabeths,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. “That is more than 80% of the 14,800 employees who will eventually work here at full. This is a win for the DHS workforce, for the capital region, and for our homeland security.”
The addition of two agency headquarters on DHS property has been years in the making. The DHS was stood up 20 years ago and brought multiple agencies under one roof, including those with offices in different parts of the region.
“We’re going to be reducing the carbon footprint of these facilities dramatically. We’re going to be lowering energy costs, and because of smart investments and solar panels and LEDs and digital-controlled lighting, it’s going to lower energy consumption,” Carnahan said.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
DHS office space nationwide will decline by the equivalent of 21 football fields and result in millions of dollars saved, Mayorkas said.
Mayorkas said the announcement followed through on lawmakers’ intentions in the early 2000s to “unite our efforts under one roof” by creating one department to oversee all security matters that affected the interior of the United States.
