CONTRACTS to build sections of former President Donald Trump's border wall with Mexico have been cancelled.
Deals that have been ditched by Joe Biden's administration are any that used funding originally intended for use by the US military and its functions.
Contracts were handed out after Trump declared a national emergency in 2019 in an effort to redirect funding to build a wall along the US southern border.
But in Biden's first day in office, he issued a proclamation which ordered a freeze on border wall projects which had been funded using military cash.
Pentagon spokesman Jamal Brown said today the Department of Defense was pulling cash from projects paid for with funds originally intended for other military missions.
The cash would also have also funded schools for military children, overseas military construction projects in partner nations, and the National Guard and Reserve equipment account.
Brown said the returned funds would be used for deferred military construction projects.
It was not immediately clear how much would be returned to the military, but it was likely to be several billion dollars.
Trump's diversion of funds from the Pentagon had been heavily criticized by lawmakers, who said it put national security at risk and circumvented congress.
In 2019 alone, the military said more than 120 U.S. military construction projects would be adversely affected by Trump's move.
The Department of Homeland Security also announced today it would take steps to address "physical dangers resulting from the previous administration's approach to border wall construction".
It said it would repair the Rio Grande Valley's flood barrier system, which it said the wall construction under the Trump administration had blown large holes into, as well as remediate soil erosion in San Diego along a wall segment
But it was not immediately clear if the Biden administration’s plan would permanently all wall construction projects along the southern border.
Since Biden took office, there has been a dramatic surge in migrants trying to enter the country illegally at the southern border.
More than 172,000 people were detained at the border in March alone, and many minors have been showing up alone.
President Biden has tapped his VP, Kamala Harris, to head up the effort to tackle the border crisis — but she's facing much criticism for what many see as a failure to act.
Questions remain on whether sections paid for from the Department of Homeland Security’s budget will be ditched.
Biden ordered a pause on all wall construction on his first day in office, leaving billions of dollars of work unfinished.
He gave aides until late March to determine how much it would cost to cancel contracts and whether money could be spent elsewhere.
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