President Joe Biden’s administration stated on Thursday that it would add some sections to the border wall between the United States and Mexico to prevent record migrant crossings. This indicates that Biden is continuing the policy typical of former President Donald Trump.
Trump is a leading candidate in the Republican Party’s nomination to challenge Biden, a Democrat, in the 2024 presidential election. Trump made the construction of the border barrier between the two countries a key principle of his first presidential campaign with the slogan “Build the Wall.”
One of Biden’s first actions after taking office in January 2021 was to issue a proclamation promising that “no more American taxpayer dollars will be diverted to building the border wall” and to review all deployed resources.
The government stated that Thursday’s action does not deviate from Biden’s proclamation because the funds allocated during Trump’s tenure in 2019 must now be spent.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement, “There is no new government policy regarding the border wall. From day one, this Administration has been clear that the border wall is not the answer.”
Mayorkas stated that the construction project had been allocated in the previous administration, and the law requires the government to use the funds, with the announcement made earlier in the year.
However, Trump quickly claimed victory and demanded an apology.
“As I have often stated, for thousands of years, there have only been two things that continue to work, the wheel and the wall!” Trump wrote on social media. “Will Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long to act…”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called the move a step backward.
IMMIGRATION A POLITICAL ISSUE
Immigration is likely to be a campaign issue in the U.S. presidential election, with a majority of Americans – 54% – agreeing with the statement that “immigration makes life more difficult for native-born Americans,” according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in September.
Approximately 73% of surveyed Republican Party members and 37% of Democratic Party members agreed with the statement.
Biden’s decision to continue border restrictions will draw criticism from the left wing, including immigration supporters and environmental activists opposing further development.
In a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday, the Biden Department of Homeland Security stated that they needed to set aside certain laws, regulations, and legal requirements to build a barrier in Starr County, Texas.
This county is in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, where Border Patrol agents encountered over 245,000 people entering the United States in the fiscal year, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the Federal Register.
“There is an urgent and compelling need at this time to construct physical barriers and roads along the United States border to deter unlawful entry,” he said.
Environmental observers expressed their displeasure.
“Starr County is home to some of the most spectacular and biologically important habitats left in Texas,” said Laiken Jordahl, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, which opposes the wall, in a statement, “and now bulldozers are gearing up to tear through it.”
The White House stated in a statement that they have taken a different approach to try to improve the “broken immigration system” they claim to have “inherited” from Biden, including enhancing legal pathways for migrants and investing in border security technology.
STRUGGLE WITH RECORD MIGRANT CROSSINGS
The government has struggled operationally and politically with the record number of migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border during Biden’s tenure, reaching new highs in September.
Biden initially pledged to reverse many of Trump’s immigration policies but retained the COVID-era public health order known as Title 42, which allows border agents to expel migrants to Mexico without a chance to seek asylum.
When Title 42 ended on May 11 of this year, the Biden administration replaced it with new strict rules that require migrants to make appointments via a government-run smartphone app before approaching a legal port of entry. Or, they face stricter asylum bans if they cross the border illegally.
The number of migrants initially dropped after the announcement of the new rules, but in recent weeks, migrant numbers have begun to rise again, partly due to thousands of migrants fleeing Venezuela.
In another major enforcement action announced on Thursday, Biden administration officials said they would resume deportation flights to Venezuela, which had been suspended due to frosty relations between the two countries.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, many escaping economic and political turmoil in their country, have walked through the treacherous forest region between Colombia and Panama known as the Darien Gap to reach the U.S.-Mexico border in the past two years.
The increasing number of migrants has strained U.S. border towns and northern regions. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, asylum seekers can be released into the U.S. to pursue their claims in immigration court, where there are more than 2 million cases pending, often taking years to resolve.
Republican governors near the border, who said Biden has not done enough to stop the crossings, have sent some migrants arriving to Democratic Party-controlled cities like New York and Chicago, and some Democratic Party leaders there are now also criticizing Biden.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams began a trip to Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador on Thursday to tell potential migrants that his city cannot accommodate them after local shelter systems became overwhelmed.
Around 11 million immigrants are in the U.S. without official documentation, according to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute. Many of them have lived and worked in the country for years or decades.
At the start of his tenure, Biden attempted to push through a comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress, but opposition from the Republican Party thwarted progress.
