It’s looking like Joe Biden’s pause on border wall construction could end up indeed just being a pause – and not because of his doing.
In the last year of his presidency Trump went into overdrive when it came to building the southern border, completing 450 miles of new border, with hundreds of miles of additional wall authorized to be built. On the day he took office, Biden ordered a “pause” on border wall construction, bringing it to a halt, and costing taxpayers about $6 million per day.
The current surge at the border goes to prove how needed the additional wall is.
Some lawmakers in Texas are looking to finish parts of the border themselves. State Rep. Bryan Slaton has filed a bill designed to fund “border security enhancement projects.” The idea would be for Texas to build the wall with their own funds and then ask the Federal Government for reimbursement.
Illegals are currently pouring in through the unfinished portions of the wall where construction has been halted – and that could prompt Biden’s Department of Homeland Security to finish what Trump started.
According to Breitbart:
An exclusive report from Washington Times reporter Stephen Dinan suggests that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is considering restarting border wall construction to fill in “gaps” that exist after former President Trump’s administration constructed 450 miles from 2017 to 2020.
Dinan reports: “In a conversation with ICE employees last week Mr. Mayorkas was asked about his plans for the wall and he said that while Mr. Biden has canceled the border emergency and halted Pentagon money flowing to the wall, “that leaves room to make decisions” on finishing some “gaps in the wall.” Mr. Mayorkas, according to notes of the ICE session reviewed by The Washington Times, said Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the wall, has submitted a plan for what it wants to see happen moving forward.”
Mayorkas reportedly added that while Biden communicated that he wants construction of the border to end, they (the DHS) have room “to make decisions as the administration, as part of the administration, in particular areas of the wall that need renovation, particular projects that need to be finished.”
If there’s one thing we know about walls, it’s that they work.
A study that appeared in the American Economic Association’s July 20 edition documented the effects the Secure Fence Act of 2006 had on deterring migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
While the fence the Act produced comes short of Trump’s criteria for a “big beautiful wall,” the study still found that it had a sizable impact on deterring illegal immigration. The Act authorized construction of 700 miles of fencing along the border, most of which was completed by 2009, but not finished completely until 2015.
According to a summary of the study from Breitbart’s Neil Murno: “Construction in a municipality reduces migration by 27 percent for municipality residents and 15 percent for residents of adjacent municipalities. In addition, construction reduces migration by up to 35 percent from non-border municipalities. Given working-aged populations of 5.0 million in Mexican border regions and 59.8 million in non-border regions, baseline migration rates of 0.42 percent and 0.41 percent per quarter, and estimated migration declines of 27 percent and 35 percent, roughly 5,670 border municipality migrants and 85,810 non-border migrants would be deterred each quarter if the entire border was fenced.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has yet to publicly acknowledge the border crisis as a crisis.
Matt Palumbo is the author of Dumb and Dumber: How Cuomo and de Blasio Ruined New York, Debunk This: Shattering Liberal Lies, and Spygate
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