After vowing not to spend additional money building the wall on the U.S.–Mexico border begun by the Trump administration, President Joe Biden has authorized construction of a new, 20-mile section of the wall in Starr County, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley. Biden is also waiving more than two dozen federal environmental laws to facilitate the work.
Announcing the project in the Federal Register last month, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas noted that the new wall will be funded with money allotted in 2019, meaning Biden is keeping his word about not spending additional money. The move comes in response to record numbers of migrants trying to cross the border in September.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States,” Mayorkas said in the Federal Register, “in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas pursuant.”
