By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
The Biden administration has bypassed 26 federal public health, environmental, and cultural preservation laws to fast-track border wall and road construction in Starr County, Texas. The decision marks a significant departure from President Biden’s earlier stance to halt border wall development in favor of comprehensive reforms.
“The Biden administration’s decision to rush into border wall construction marks a profound failure,” said Jonathan Blazer, director of border strategies at the American Civil Liberties Union. “On the campaign trail, President Biden put it best when he said that the border wall is not a serious policy solution, and we couldn’t agree more,” Blazer continued. “Instead of upholding this promise, the Biden administration is doubling down on the failed policies of the past that have proven wasteful and ineffective. This politically motivated action will only harm border communities. It’s time for the Biden administration to choose humanity and real solutions over politics.”
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump famously vowed to construct a wall along the southern U.S. border to curb unauthorized immigration, promising that Mexico would foot the bill. That never materialized. While most perceived the Biden administration as more immigrant-friendly, the new border announcement has puzzled many. Trump’s recent admission that his insistence on Mexico financing the wall was merely rhetoric further confounded many opponents of such construction.
“When you hear these lunatics back there say, ‘Trump didn’t get anything from Mexico,’ well, you know, there was no legal mechanism,” the twice-impeached and four-time indicted former president railed at a recent campaign rally. “I said they’re going to help fund this wall, but there was no legal mechanism. How do you go to a country, you say, ‘By the way, I’m building a wall; hand us a lot of money.’”
According to a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday, Oct. 5, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called it imperative, within the bounds of the law, to waive specific statutes, regulations, and legal requisites to ensure the swift construction of barriers and roads near the international land border in Starr County, Texas. Reportedly, in the 2023 fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, the U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley encountered over 245,000 migrants who had entered the country between ports of entry or unlawfully.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States,” Mayorkas stated.
