Realpolitik prevails over ideology. In a spectacular turn, what is called a “flip flop”, the Joe Biden government endorses the wall on the border with Mexico that for its predecessor was one of its hallmarks, one of the great demands to bring together the Trumpists. The current executive has already taken the necessary steps to resume construction in some 32 kilometers of Texas, just when pressure is growing due to the massive entry of immigrants.
Biden's promise that he would not advance “not one more foot” in this work, which he described as an aberration and senseless waste in line with the leaders of his party, was repeated in his electoral campaign in 2020. He also gave content to one of the executive orders he signed as soon as he moved to the White House.
“Building a massive wall along the entire southern border is not a serious political solution. “It is a waste of money that diverts attention from the real threats to our national security,” Biden said that day in January 2021 when he took office.
The arrival of undocumented immigrants to the United States is no longer just an obsession of Republicans. Democratic governors and mayors of cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia or Denver, overwhelmed in their attention services, are beginning to raise their voices about the impact of this human current, avoiding talking about the invasion that the ultra-rightists proclaim.
The Biden administration announced that it is waiving 26 federal environmental laws to allow the construction of the wall in south Texas. This is the first time he has used broad executive power that Donald Trump relied on often during his time in office.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) placed the announcement in the US Federal Register with few details about the building project in Starr County, Texas, an area where border patrols have observed a “high illegal entry” of people. According to government data, some 245,000 undocumented immigrants, of 21 nationalities, crossed through that specific point in the Rio Grande Valley throughout this fiscal year.
“There is currently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border to prevent illegal entries into the United States in the project areas,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in the notification document.
Amid criticism from progressives and environmental protectors, who called this decision a “bad idea” and “terrible setback,” White House sources came out on the defensive. Although Mayorkas' document seems to link the resumption of work to the increase in immigrants, the government denied that relationship.
In its denial, and in defense of the president, the official version stressed that this decision, released at midnight, was advanced in June with the argument that there was a legal requirement to carry out the construction in that county, which adds to the raised previously. It was highlighted and recalled this Thursday that everything responds to the obligation to comply with the law since Congress, in the fiscal year of 2019, with Trump in the presidency, approved the appropriation of funds to build the wall in that area and the DHS must comply with the requirement to use that allocation for its intended purpose.
"That money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to reappropriate it and redirect it. It couldn't be done. So, under the law, we can't do anything else for its use. I can't stop this," Biden himself lamented this Thursday . "It's not effective," he replied when asked if he had changed his opinion about the usefulness of that barrier.
The border agency stressed that the project is “consistent” with Biden's declaration to end the use of Pentagon money to continue this work and to process what was requested by Congress.
“We maintain our commitment to protecting natural and cultural resources, as well as applying environmental practices as established in the project,” said that agency in a statement.
Starr County, between the cities of Zapata and McAllen, has 65,000 residents, predominantly farmers and farmers, spread over a territory of about 3,108 square kilometers. One of the activists' concerns is that it is a space with a lot of erosion due to the numerous streams.
During the Trump era, some 724 kilometers of barrier were built, although most of the operation consisted of updating and reinforcing the wall already built previously.
Numbers from some media showed that last month alone, on the entire border with Mexico, there was the entry of more than 200,000 immigrants without papers, up from 182,700 in September 2022.
