Biden administration to extend border wall touted by Donald Trump

WASHINGTON ∸ The Biden administration is building a new barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border despite President Joe Biden’s promise as a candidate not to add to a controversial border wall that has long been a signature of his predecessor Donald Trump.

Amid surging migration, the Biden administration is bypassing 26 federal laws, including environmental restrictions, to build a new section of the border wall in South Texas near the Rio Grande River, according to a Federal Registry notice made public Thursday.

Citing "high illegal entry" into the U.S., Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended expediting the wall's construction by using his authority to waive certain federal laws.

"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 wrote in the notice. 

The additional barriers, as well as new roads in Starr County, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, will be paid for by funding approved by Congress in 2019 during the Trump presidency.

As a 2020 presidential candidate, Biden vowed not to build "another foot" of a border wall that Trump has for years made the focus of his efforts to stop illegal immigration.

Biden said Thursday that he had no choice because Congress did not agree to cancel the funding approved in a 2019 law before he became president.

"The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money," Biden told reporters. "They didn’t. They wouldn’t. In the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated for. I can’t stop that."

Asked whether he believes a border wall is effective, Biden responded, "No," contradicting the statement from Mayorkas justifying the project.

In June, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the construction of a 20-mile barrier with steel bollard panels. The funding will come from $190 million remaining from a pool of $1.38 billion Congress approved in 2019 for fencing in the Rio Grande Valley.

Mexican president criticizes Biden's wall expansion

Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border are on the rise again after initially dropping sharply in May and June after the Biden administration launched a new policy requiring migrants heading to the U.S. border to first seek protection in Mexico.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador criticized the wall expansion as he prepared to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Mexico City. "This authorization for the construction of the wall is a step backwards," he said, according to Reuters, adding that it "doesn't solve the problem" of migration. "The causes must be addressed.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said DHS was required to use the funding for the border wall as Congress intended. "We have to comply by law to get this done," Jean-Pierre said.

The move comes amid a surge of migrant crossings along the Texas border with Mexico, and as the Justice Department is battling Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over some of his initiatives aimed at deterring illegal immigration.

Democratic activist and South Texas attorney Ricardo de Anda, who battled the Trump administration's efforts to take private land for his signature border wall project, called the Biden administration's wall expansion "a slap in the face."

Trump needled Biden on his social media web site Truth Social over the reversal. ''Will Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long to get moving, and allowing our country to be flooded with 15 million illegals immigrants?" Trump wrote.

Deportation flights of Venezuelans in US illegally to resume

Pushing back at criticism, Mayorkas issued a statement Thursday saying the language in the federal notice is being taken out of context. "There is no new administration policy with respect to border walls," he said. "From day one, this administration has made clear that a border wall is not the answer."

In another step aimed at surging migration, the Biden administration announced it would resume deportation flights of Venezuelans who entered the U.S. illegally. Officials said it follows an agreement with the Venezuelan government to accept Venezuelan nationals who fled their country.

Two senior Biden administration officials, who discussed the move on the condition of anonymity, said 66,000 Venezuelan migrants have entered the U.S. legally since the administration announced the new policy.

A political, economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela over the past decade has pushed at least 7.3 million people to migrate, most of them to neighboring Latin American countries, but more recently to the U.S through Mexico. Many have made their journeys through the dangerous Darien Gap, a remote jungle between Colombia and Panama that is treacherous and often deadly.

Abbott, whose office had no immediate comment on Mayorkas' border wall announcement, has been the nation's harshest critic of the Democratic administration's approach to matters of unlawful immigration and border security. The Texas state Legislature has allocated nearly $10 billion since Biden took office for Abbott's Operation Lone Star, which has sent thousands of National Guard troops from the Texas Department of Public Safety to South Texas.

Texas has also laid miles of razor wire and has built barriers on private land with permission from owners as part of the operation.

On Thursday, the state met the Biden Justice Department before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans for a hearing over whether Texas will be allowed to keep its controversial 1,000-foot string of buoys in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass while the federal lawsuit over the matter plays out. The court's three-judge panel did not issue a ruling after hearing from Texas and federal lawyers.

Contributing: Maureen Groppe, The Associated Press

Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden administration moves to extend border wall touted by Trump