No, Congress did not approve $50 billion for border fence in 2006

The feud over a proposed border wall has fueled retorts on Facebook that Congress approved a much more expensive barrier more than a decade ago.

The versions we saw on Facebook and Twitter suggest the money mysteriously vanished.

One post, shared more than 6,000 times on Facebook, said: "The question of the decade: where is the $50 billion approved in ‘06 for the Secure Fence Act that Obama was supposed to build?"

Another post said: "Where is the $50 billion set aside for the 2006 Secure Fence Act? Bush signed it and Obama was supposed to oversee its construction. Where is the money?"

These posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Here’s the problem with the missing money claims: Congress did not approve $50 billion for a fence in 2006. (Snopes previously debunked these social media posts.)

Just over half of Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, including Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton. Most Democrats in the House voted against it, including California Rep. Nancy Pelosi. President George W. Bush signed it into law in October 2006.

The law authorized a fence along about 700 miles of the border between the U.S.-Mexico border. By 2015, 654 miles were completed.

We read several news stories about the act’s passage in 2006. None pegged the cost anywhere near $50 billion.

The Secure Fence Act didn’t mention money to be spent on fencing.

Congress separately approved a $33.7 billion spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which included $1.2 billion for fencing, infrastructure and technology on the border.

The $1.2 billion was described in news articles as a down payment, but there was disagreement about how much the full fence would cost. Newspapers and politicians cited estimates between $2 billion and $12 billion.

So where did this idea of $50 billion come from? It’s not very straightforward.

In January 2007, multiple news reports and an article by the Migration Policy Institute started to mention a pot of about $50 billion for fencing.

These reports reference the work of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.