WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roger F. Wicker, R-Miss., ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, today commented on the Biden administration’s decision to build 20 miles of border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border after spending millions of taxpayer dollars to store and auction off existing border wall materials.

“If the president is serious about returning to border security like we had during the Trump administration, he should immediately enact what I have put in my FINISH It Act,” Wicker said.

The Mississippi senator is the author of the FINISH IT Act, which has been included in the Senate’s fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. The provision would compel the Biden administration to use thousands of existing border panels for wall construction.

Wicker has led Senate efforts to hold the Biden administration accountable for the waste of these panels, which the administration was moving quickly to sell at auction before Wicker’s legislation could be implemented.

“I would say to the president, we've got sections of the wall right now that could be installed today, that could be installed tomorrow. Mr. President, quit selling those sections of the wall for scrap metal. Erect them and let's do the wall the way that it was intended to be,” Wicker said.

Read more about the FINISH IT Act and other border legislation Senator Wicker has led here. Watch his recent speech on border security here. Read more about the Biden administration’s misuse of taxpayer dollars at the southern border here and here.

See the full transcript of Senator Wicker’s comments below.

If the president is serious about returning to border security like we had during the Trump administration, he should immediately enact what I have put in my FINISH It Act, which is to take those sections of the wall that are already manufactured and ready to be put in place and erect them on the border. Instead, his administration has -- for months now -- been selling these already manufactured parts of the border wall off for pennies on the dollar, having them turned into scrap metal rather than using them for the purposes.

So, I would say to the president, we've got sections of the wall right now that could be installed today, that could be installed tomorrow. Mr. President, quit selling those sections of the wall for scrap metal. Erect them and let's do the wall the way that it was intended to be and the way that it has been working in the sections where we've had it for years and years.