Donald Trump is the “main” Republican who will face off against the main Democrat, Biden, in the 2024 presidential race. The main principle of Trump’s first presidential campaign was to build border barriers under the slogan “Build That Wall”.
The Biden administration issued a statement on Thursday saying it planned to add a section to the border wall to prevent record numbers of migrants who regularly cross the Mexican border, continuing former President Donald Trump’s policies.
During his presidential campaign, Trump focused on building border barriers, chanting “Build That Wall” at rallies.
As soon as Biden took office in early 2021, he immediately declared that “not one more American taxpayer dollar will be diverted to building a border wall,” and he would review all resources that had been already committed. The administration said Thursday’s action was not at odds with Biden’s statement because the money allocated during Trump’s term in 2019 had be spent now.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed in a statement that there was “no new Administration policy with respect to border walls. From day one, this Administration has made clear that a border wall is not the answer.”
Mayorkas said funding for the construction was approved as far back as the previous administration and by law the government owes the allocation, which was announced earlier this year. He said:
“We have repeatedly asked Congress to rescind this money but it has not done so and we are compelled to follow the law.”
Trump, however, was quick to claim victory and demand an apology. He wrote on social media:
“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…”
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador thinks that the move is “a step backwards.”
Immigration is likely to be a campaign theme in the US presidential race as a majority of Americans – 54 per cent – agree with the statement that “immigration makes life harder for native-born Americans”, a Reuters/Ipsos poll in September showed.
Some 37% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans surveyed agreed with that statement.
Biden’s decision to build border barriers will spark criticism of the president from his left-wing supporters, including immigration advocates and environmentalists who oppose further construction.
In a notice published Thursday in the Federal Register, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security said it needed to waive a number of laws, regulations and other legal requirements to build the fences in Starr County, Texas.
The district is in the Rio Grande Valley sector, where Border Patrol agents encountered more than 245,000 people entering the United States this fiscal year, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the Federal Register.
