Up to $350M in unused border wall materials set to be returned

A government surplus auction company that acquired up to $350 million in unused construction materials from President Trump’s unfinished wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is reportedly ready to return them to the U.S. government as part of a recent agreement.

GovPlanet was set to sell unused steel panels, bollards and concrete after former President Biden ordered construction on parts of the wall to stop after he took office in 2021.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), specifically U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), is currently in talks with the company regarding the return of the materials for pennies on the dollar. DHS sources told NewsNation that a deal between the government and GovPlanet has been reached but did not provide details.

Published reports, however, indicate that the auction site and DHS reached an agreement last week to have a third-party contractor take control of the materials in the next 90 days.

Requests for comment on the reported pact sent by NewsNation to GovPlanet, the White House and DHS on Thursday were not immediately returned.

The president told reporters Wednesday that Bondi is working “very hard” to sue GovPlanet, which listed the used building materials from the wall for sale in December on its website.

Trump added that his administration plans to “take the wall back” and that, as he understands it, the government will “take the wall back” and put the wall back up.

The sun sets over a section of the border wall, Wednesday, June 18, 2025, in Mission, Texas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

“They stole the wall from us. That wall is so expensive to build, and we had it, as you know, hundreds of miles of it ... and they came along and they basically sold it for scrap,” Trump told reporters during a news conference at The Kennedy Center.

He pinned the blame for the construction materials directly on Biden, saying that the administration “sold the wall.”

“Now, this is expensive stuff. ... Biden sold it for pennies on the dollar, three cents on the dollar, four cents on the dollar. He sold it,” the president told reporters.

In January, however, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the Biden administration cannot sell any building materials designated for the wall and cannot assign funds originally allocated for the project to Congress for other purposes.

After the order, GovPlanet removed the materials from its website and announced that it had reached a deal with the government last week, according to reports.

In a statement to other news outlets, GovPlanet said it is returning the construction materials at cost to help protect millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

A large collection of unused construction materials for the border wall is set to be returned to the U.S. government after they were auctioned off to a government surplus auction house. (Travis Harrison/NewsNation)

"We are expediting the transfer of these materials to support ... border protection plans," the statement said. "We value our longstanding partnership with the U.S. government ... continuing to support America’s federal agencies."

Once the unused construction materials are collected, work on the border wall is set to resume in parts of Texas and California. A total of $46.5 billion is allocated in Trump’s funding bill to complete construction of the border wall.

In addition to Texas and California, parts of the southern border in Arizona are also a priority. The Pentagon recently shifted $200 million that was originally earmarked for projects like barracks and airport hangars to put up 20 miles of Trump’s 30-foot barrier along the border in Arizona as part of the latest National Defense Area.

Arizona had its fair share of issues with both Yuma and Lukeville being hot spots exploited by the cartel, where they would send hundreds illegally through the holes daily. Arizona also deals with the issue of Native American reservations in a few of its sectors and is restricted from building in several areas.

In the Lone Star State, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) told NewsNation that the wall is needed to help secure the border. NewsNation reported exclusively Wednesday that five new high-tech surveillance towers that will help U.S Border Patrol agents monitor migrant getaways in the Del Rio Sector are being installed as part of a continued effort to conduct immigration enforcement.

“You need a wall. You need technology,” Gonzales said. “These (high-tech surveillance camera) towers work. This new technology that's coming on the border works, especially in very remote, remote areas. And you need boots on the ground, right?"

"You need to have Border Patrol agents," he continued. "You need to have local law enforcement. You need to have everybody working together.”