U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Friday announced that they have awarded the first border wall construction contract of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, and will spend just over $70 million for the construction of seven miles of new border wall in Hidalgo County, Texas.

CBP says that the $70,285,846 contract with Granite Construction Co. is funded by the agency’s fiscal year 2021 funds, and this phase of construction will “close critical openings in the border wall that were left incomplete due to cancelled contracts during the Biden Administration.”

Hidalgo County within the U.S. Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, which covers a patrol area along the southern border of southeast Texas of 320 river miles, 250 coastal miles and 19 counties, for a total of over 17,000 square miles.

According to CBP, the Rio Grande Valley Sector is an area of high-illegal entry and encounters a large number of individuals and illegal drugs being smuggled into the U.S.

“Completing the border wall in these locations will support the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) ability to impede and deny illegal border crossings and the drug-and human-smuggling activities of cartels,” CBP stated Friday.

The announcement of the border wall contract comes as CBP is reporting the lowest number of nationwide apprehensions in the agency’s history.

Last week, CBP reported that nationwide apprehensions averaged approximately 330 per day in February, while apprehensions at the southern border were down to an average of less than 300 per day.

Border Patrol apprehensions of illegal aliens crossing into the U.S. over the southwest border drastically decreased in February, with 8,347 illegal aliens encountered by agents between ports of entry — a 94% decrease from February 2024 under the Biden administration when Border Patrol apprehended 140,641 aliens.