The House Homeland Security Committee voted 18-12 Wednesday to pass a bill that would authorize $10 billion in funds to build a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, The Hill reported Wednesday.Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House panel, introduced the Border Security for America Act that would also allocate $5 billion to hire 5,000 additional Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol agents as well as fund ports of entry development efforts.
The measure would authorize the reimbursement of states for up to $35 million with regard to the use of National Guard resources to shore up border security efforts.
The committee sends the bill to the House floor amid debate on the issue of adding border security provisions to a potential measure that seeks to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients, the report added.
The bill’s approval came a month after CBP awarded four companies contracts worth up to $500,000 each to build concrete wall prototypes and another set of contracts for non-concrete wall prototypes for the proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall.
