In an August 2020 interview, Joe Biden stated, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, No. 1.”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Homeland Security is putting up many, many feet of wall, having targeted 129 gaps in a 300-mile section of Trump-era wall construction.
Team Biden has not promoted its border wall construction, which has filled gaps in the wall in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.
“To date, DHS has authorized the completion of multiple life, safety, environmental, and other remediation activities, which include, among other activities, the closure of 129 gates and gaps across the Southwest Border. Of the 129 approved gates and gaps, 68 have been completed to date with an additional 50 anticipated for completion by September 30, 2023,” Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said. “The remaining 11 are anticipated to be completed in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024.”
On Jan. 20, 2021, Biden suspended all border wall construction, squandering billions of dollars in congressional financing and supplies that had been approved for the wall.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had requested that the Department of Defense cancel all projects financed with the $10.5 billion in Pentagon funds that President Donald Trump allocated. Of that, $2 billion was left unspent. Congress also provided an additional $5 billion on top of the $10.5 billion for border infrastructure.
The Biden administration claimed to have spent what was left of the money on other types of infrastructure, such as roads. Republicans have disputed this claim.
A report by One American News (OAN) cited Ken Oliver, director of Right on Immigration at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, as saying: “There never was any legitimate justification for waiting nearly 2 1/2 years to get around to doing construction that should have never stopped and that should have been completed by now. It was a highly irresponsible and unlawful action by the Biden administration to halt construction of duly appropriated border wall funding in the first place.”
OAN's Brooke Mallory noted: "The gaps between projects that are being filled do not even come close to matching the 300 miles of additional barrier construction that was halted after Biden took office as president. However, the holes are now reportedly being filled using the money that was left over from Trump’s wall construction. The Biden administration has not stated how many miles the gap would cover."
Team Biden's gap-filling exercise has not done much of anything to slow the flow of illegals pouring in via the U.S.-Mexico border, critics say. The immigrants merely find one of the many other open gaps.
Immigrants attempting to enter Yuma were directed to areas with gaps, where Border Patrol agents were waiting. In theory, fewer holes would mean fewer people entering through them, but it may also divert people attempting to enter to other areas where there is no wall.
Yuma border wall projects, for example, may have had various segments finished at different dates. If wall projects were canceled before they were finished, it would have left gaps in the total project that may have been 10 feet, a few hundred feet, or many miles wide. Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls described the efforts as an “important first step to getting this border crisis under control.”
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