Insets: U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton and Donald Trump (Presidential Prayer Team/AP Photo/Alex Brandon). Background: The southern U.S. Border wall (Mario Tama/Getty Images).
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says the state “secured a victory” for President-elect Donald Trump’s border security agenda in federal court, with the Biden administration announcing at a motions hearing that it agreed to stop “disposing” of border wall materials — aka auctioning them off — over the next month as it prepares for Trump to take office amid his claims of mass deportations.
“The Biden administration confirmed to the court today that it will agree to an order preventing the outgoing administration from disposing of any further border wall materials over the next 30 days,” Paxton’s office announced Friday in a press release, which came a little over a week after the Texas AG filed a federal motion to prevent sections of the wall from being sold illegally after reports emerged claiming the Biden administration was auctioning off up to a half a mile per day “for a mere fraction of the original purchase cost,” according to Paxton’s office.
“The Biden Administration cannot auction off sections of the border wall,” Paxton said in a Dec. 17 statement. “If these reports are true, the Biden Administration is violating a federal court order. Texas is going to court to prevent any border security materials from being unlawfully sold and to find out the truth about what the federal government may be doing to subvert border wall construction. President Trump has an overwhelming mandate from the American people to build the wall and I will do everything in my power to prevent any acts of sabotage by the outgoing administration.”
U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, appointed by Trump in 2020, issued an order on Friday barring the sale of wall materials for 30 days, according to Paxton’s office. He also asked the Biden administration to provide documentation showing whether it violated a previous injunction secured by Paxton in May, requiring the current president to spend “statutorily obligated funds on border wall construction” after the government attempted to illegally redirect the money, Paxton says.
The state of Texas is suing the Biden administration, along with the state of Missouri and its AG Andrew Bailey, for “refusing to comply” with a 2020 law passed by Congress that set aside $1.4 billion for the construction of barrier systems at the southern border.
“We have successfully blocked the Biden administration from disposing of any further border wall materials before President Trump takes office,” Paxton said Friday in a statement. “This follows our major victory forcing Biden to build the wall, and we will hold his Administration accountable for illegally subverting our Nation’s border security until their very last day in power, especially where their actions are clearly motivated by a desire to thwart President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda.”
In their motion to block the sale, Paxton and the other plaintiffs claimed Trump was “deeply troubled” by the reports of wall sections being sold at “rock-bottom prices,” especially during “this lame-duck period,” per the motion.
“On December 17, 2024, President Trump stated that he has received reports that the Biden Administration is selling border-wall materials at ‘five cents on the dollar,’ and that this is ‘almost a criminal act,”” the motion stated. “He highlighted reporting that purchasers of the materials, who acquired them at a steep discount, are now offering to sell the materials back to the Trump Administration for ‘hundreds of times more’ than they spent on them.”
William McKerall, the deputy executive director and director of facilities design and construction for the Texas Facilities Commission, declared in court filings on Dec. 26 that the “disposal process” deployed by the federal government has been “significantly lacking in both presentation and detail.”
Attempts by Law&Crime to reach the Justice Department and Paxton’s office for comment on Sunday were unsuccessful.
