Biden administration plans to build border wall in Starr County despite campaign promise

Despite candidate Joe Biden's promise that "not another foot" of border wall would be built during his presidency, his secretary of homeland security has announced his intention to bypass more than two dozen federal laws to construct barriers in remote South Texas to deter unlawful immigration.

In a notice in the Federal Register that was posted Wednesday and took effect Thursday, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said the additional barriers will go up in a “high illegal entry” area of Starr County about midway between Laredo and Brownsville on the Rio Grande. The move comes amid an increase in migrant crossings along the Texas border with Mexico, and as the U.S. Justice Department is battling Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over some of his initiatives aimed at deterring illegal immigration.

"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 Federal Register.

His proclamation also serves notice that 26 laws are being waived "in their entirety" to ensure that all aspects of construction can move forward. Among them are the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act.

Abbott, whose office had no immediate comment on Mayorkas' announcement, has been the nation's harshest critic of the Democratic administration's approach to matters of unlawful immigration and border security. The Legislature has allocated nearly $10 billion since Biden took office for Abbott's Operation Lone Star, which has sent thousands of National Guard soldiers and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers 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 faced off with Biden's Justice Department before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans for a hearing on whether Texas will be allowed to keep its controversial 1,000-foot string of buoys in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass while a federal lawsuit over the matter plays out. The court's three-judge panel did not issue a ruling after hearing from state and federal lawyers.

During an interview with members of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in August 2020, Biden sharply contrasted himself with Trump on immigration, saying the nation needed "high-tech capacity" and not physical barriers to control unlawful immigration.

"There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration," Biden told the organizations.

While Abbott and GOP leaders nationwide have hammered Biden on immigration and the rollback of many of former President Donald Trump's hard-line border policies, Democrats in Texas have found themselves caught in the middle. They were as critical as anyone else of Trump's policies, but leaders such as U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Joaquin Castro of San Antonio have been critical of the administration for not seizing the initiative on 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 move by the Biden White House "a slap in the face."

"It directly contradicts his promise before the election, after the election and after his inauguration that he would not build one more foot of wall," de Anda said. "It's very disappointing. It's a slap in the face to what I consider, at least in Texas, his Democratic Party base of voters and doesn't bode well for him."

Biden won most South Texas counties while losing the overall state in 2020, but Trump did surprisingly well in the region, which has been a Democratic stronghold for decades. The margin in Starr County was tight, with Biden taking 52% of the vote. De Anda said that by renewing the wall project, even in the limited way announced by Mayorkas, Biden has made generating enthusiasm among South Texas progressives an even larger challenge in 2024.

Former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke of El Paso, who briefly challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination last cycle and who two years later made a failed bid to topple Abbott, did not mask his dismay at the renewed wall plan. Voters will now have a harder time distinguishing between Biden and Trump, assuming they capture their parties' presidential nominations next year, on immigration, O'Rourke said on X, formerly Twitter.

"Wasted opportunity to use executive power to actually fix our asylum system instead of impotent political posturing," the post continued.

Mayorkas designated several stretches downstream from Falcon Dam as "project areas" because of the pace of unlawful crossings in the region. Nearly all of them are in the vicinity of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

Despite criticism from Democrats, Mayorkas said the wall projects he announced are "consistent with DHS's plan to fulfill the requirements of President Biden's Proclamation (signed upon his Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration) which ended the diversion of funds for the border wall from military projects or other sources while calling for the expenditure of any funds Congress appropriated for barrier construction consistent with their appropriated purpose."

Mayorkas also said he was acting under his "sole discretion" under immigration law that allows the secretary of homeland security to take actions "necessary to install additional physical barriers and roads ... in the vicinity of the United States border to deter illegal crossings" in high-traffic areas.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Biden administration reverses course, renews wall project in Texas