President Donald Trump responded to Joe Biden’s border wall reversal following reports that the current administration will resume construction this week.
Biden mocked Trump over the border wall throughout his 2020 presidential campaign.
As NBC News reported earlier this week, the Biden administration announced it waived 26 federal laws to permit the border wall construction in southern Texas,
The move came in response to mounting concerns over the migrant crisis.
The Department of Homeland Security announced the administration was waiving the following federal laws to continue construction:
The Clean Air Act
The Safe Drinking Water Act
T Endangered Species Act
“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 in the project areas,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in the notice.
A spokesperson for the US Customs and Border Protection noted that Mayorkas issued a waiver under federal immigration law.
“Congress appropriated fiscal year 2019 funds for the construction of border barrier in the Rio Grande Valley, and DHS is required to use those funds for their appropriated purpose,” the CBP spokesperson said.
“CBP remains committed to protecting the nation’s cultural and natural resources and will implement sound environmental practices as part of the project covered by this waiver,” the spokesperson added.
Biden has repeatedly mocked Trump’s border wall as a “waste of money” and “not a serious policy solution.”
In August 2020, Biden said:
“There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, number one.”
Upon taking office in 2021, Biden issued an executive order which read in part:
“It shall be the policy of my administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall.
Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.“
The administration’s announcement marks a major policy reversal.
Trump responded to Biden’s border wall reversal on Truth Social:
“So interesting to watch Crooked Joe Biden break every environmental law in the book to prove that I was right when I built 560 miles (they incorrectly state 450 in story!) of brand new, beautiful border wall.
As I have stated often, over thousands of years, there are only two things that have consistently worked, wheels, and walls! 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, from places unknown.
I await his apology!”
On Thursday, the White House said it was resuming the construction of the wall due to appropriations that Congress had already passed and that Congress had failed to pass Biden’s own immigration and border proposals.
Biden told reporters on Friday:
“I was told that I had no choice” but to build the additional wall section.
The news comes just weeks after a video showed thousands of migrants on open train cars in Mexico heading towards the US southern border.
The video, posted by Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins and independent journalist Auden Cabello, shows the migrants from all around the world headed toward the US border from Mexico on a packed train.
Watch
**NEW VIDEO**
— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) September 17, 2023
FOX News sources capture a FerroMex train bursting with migrants out of Zacatecas heading to our southern border right now… cheering and clearly not heeding the message: “do not come”@FoxNews pic.twitter.com/YflMwXrWqu
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