A dozen companies chosen to work on up to $5 billion in construction projects for Trump’s border wall
By: Howard Altman
MilitaryTimes.com
5/10/2019
President Donald Trump’s vision for a border wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico took a big step forward Wednesday as a dozen companies from around the nation have been selected to compete on up to $5 billion worth of horizontal construction projects over a five-year period ending in 2024.
The awards come a year after requests for bids were first put out in response to Trump’s January 2017 executive order to secure the southern border, said Bobby Petty, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the project on behalf of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Though not specifically awarded to fund Trump’s February National Emergency Declaration that includes using up to $3.6 billion in military construction funds for a border wall, the corps could issue task orders under this program for that purpose, Petty told Military Times.
The projects will include a mix of border barrier, patrol and access roads, lights, access gates, drainage improvements, levee walls and other improvements, repairs and alterations along the border from California to Texas, Petty said.
Petty added that while the companies have been selected to bid on individual task orders for this project, the money to pay for them could come from either the Defense Department or CBP.
No individual tasks have yet been identified, Petty said, adding that they will be issued as needed until the $5 billion is spent or the 2024 deadline has expired.
A total of 38 companies originally put in requests for the project, a list that was winnowed down to a dozen and publicly announced Wednesday.
The barrier and the use of troops along the border have long been a political battle.
Democratic lawmakers want the head of the Pentagon to drop plans for military personnel to directly interact with migrants on the U.S. southern border, arguing it could violate America’s long-standing separation of the military and law enforcement.
In the latest flashpoint in the military’s growing role at the border, 19 Democratic senators, including several presidential hopefuls, sent a letter to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Wednesday urging him to revoke waivers he granted to nearly 280 of the more than 4,000 troops on the border. They also want a legal justification for “military protective activities” that Trump has authorized troops to perform.
“We urge you to revoke these waivers to prevent the continued escalation of military involvement in immigration enforcement activities and the further politicization of the use of servicemembers to inappropriately respond to a divisive domestic policy issue,” reads the letter, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and a senior member of the Armed Services and Judiciary committees. The letter was obtained by Defense News.
Last week, Shanahan approved a plan to send 320 more active-duty troops to the U.S. border with Mexico in response to another support request from Customs and Border Protection.
The Rest…HERE
