Based on the Trump administration’s initial budget request, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Tuesday said that the potential cost of a nearly 2,000-mile security wall along the U.S. southern border is $66.9 billion.
That estimate appears to be tens of billions of dollars higher than the high end of previous estimates and McCaskill warned the cost could be even higher.
“It is concerning that the cost of construction could also be significantly higher, as the cost of acquiring land currently owned by private individuals was not included in the estimate,” McCaskill wrote in a March 28 letter to Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
McCaskill’s office released the letter.
McCaskill, the ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the nearly $67 billion estimates comes from the administration’s $2.6 billion FY ’18 request for less than 75 miles of new border wall, which works out to an average of $36.6 million per mile. She also said that CBP reported to the committee staff that 1,827 miles of the southern border could be lined with a physical barrier.