Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) asks Secretary of State Antony Blinken a question during a Senate Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs to discuss the President’s the FY 2024 budget for the Department on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.
Published October 19, 2023
A group of Senate Republicans is urging President Biden to expand construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, just weeks after the administration announced it would move forward with building the wall.
The Republicans, led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), sent a letter to Biden asking his administration to resubmit the supplemental funding request it sent in August to include more resources for border construction.
“Your administration’s decision to continue construction of the Trump Administration’s physical border wall is a step in combating ‘high illegal entry’ rates. With that, more must be done,” the 13 Republicans wrote.
The Biden administration announced earlier this month it was waiving certain environmental laws to allow for construction along a busy sector of the border in Texas. This reversal came as a shock to many of the president’s allies and Democrats who have denounced the construction of a border wall former President Trump promoted.
Biden has argued his hands were tied, saying the funds were appropriated for building a border wall. The wall will be constructed in Starr County, Texas, using the funds appropriated by Congress in 2019, before Biden took office.
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SOURCE: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4264738-senate-republicans-president-biden-border-wall-expansion/
RELATED: House Oversight Republicans push Biden DHS on ‘conflicting’ border wall positions
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas cited an ‘acute and immediate’ need to build wall
Published October 19, 2023
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are investigating the decision-making behind what they see as “conflicting” statements by the Biden administration on border wall construction at the southern border — after the administration waived dozens of federal regulations to allow construction in Texas.
Committee Republicans, led by Chairman James Comer, have written to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the move to waive 26 federal laws to allow construction of barriers and roads in Starr County, Texas.
The construction is funded by the fiscal year 2019 DHS appropriations bill, which specifically funded wall projects in the RGV Sector and which DHS is required to use for its appropriated purpose.
While the construction announcement was made in June, Mayorkas cited this month an “acute and immediate need” in an announcement on the U.S. Federal Register in order to waive federal laws due to high illegal crossings in the area.
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SOURCE: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-oversight-republicans-push-biden-dhs-conflicting-border-wall-positions
RELATED: Border wall plan meets resistance
Published October 19, 2023
More than 100 groups and nonprofit organizations have sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden asking him to stop the plan to waive environmental laws to quickly build a border wall through Starr County in South Texas.
“We write to express our profound dismay and opposition to [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas’ waiver of 26 federal laws to rush the resumption of border wall construction in Starr County, Texas,” reads the letter signed by 120 organizations that was sent on Oct 16. “We must make clear that there is no legal requirement to waive laws that protect vulnerable border communities and wildlife in the appropriations language or elsewhere.”
Homeland Security announced on Oct 5 that it was waiving the environmental regulatory laws to build 20 miles of border wall in Starr County. It is the first time the Biden administration waived so many laws to expedite border barrier construction.
Biden was critical of then-President Donald Trump’s border wall project and pledged in his 2020 presidential campaign that he wouldn’t build “another foot” of wall. He signed an executive order on his first day in the office to halt any construction of such a wall, saying that it was a waste of money.
But Biden said the law required continued certain wall construction because Congress appropriated money for it in 2019.
