Biden to build new border wall touted by Trump, in policy reversal

Biden to build new border wall touted by Trump, in policy reversal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration said on Thursday it will build additional sections of border wall to stave off record migrant crossings from Mexico, a policy reversal that embraces a signature measure of former President Donald Trump.

Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican Party nomination to challenge Biden, a Democrat, in the 2024 presidential race. Trump made building border barriers a central tenet of his first campaign for president with the rally chant, "Build That Wall."

One of Biden's first actions after taking office in January 2021 was to issue a proclamation pledging "no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall" as well as a review of all resources that had already been committed.

Trump was quick to claim victory and demand an apology.

"As I have stated often, over thousands of years, there are only two things that have consistently worked, wheels, and walls!" Trump wrote on social media. "Will Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long to get moving..."

In a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday, Biden's Department of Homeland Security said it needed to waive a number of laws, regulations and other legal requirements "to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in Starr County, Texas."

Money that was allocated during the Trump administration is being spent now on a border wall because the administration has no other choice, a US official said.

"We are required to do this by law. The funding was set to expire at the end of 2023 and if we did not use it, we’d be breaking the law," a US official said.

Attempts to push Congress to reapportion the funding elsewhere failed, the official said.

STRUGGLE WITH RECORD MIGRANT CROSSINGS

The administration has been struggling operationally and politically with a record number of migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border during Biden's term with new highs hit in September.

Under the Trump administration, Congress appropriated $1.375 billion for construction fencing in the Rio Grande Valley in fiscal 2019 and the money cannot be used for anything else, the US official said.

"The administration continues to call on Congress to cancel or reappropriate remaining border barrier funding and instead fund smarter border security measures, like border technology," which are more effective, the official said.

Biden initially promised to roll back many of Trump's immigration policies, but kept in place a COVID-era public health order known as Title 42, which allowed border agents to expel migrants to Mexico without a chance to seek asylum.

When Title 42 expired on May 11 this year, the Biden administration replaced it with a tough new rule that requires migrants to make an appointment on a government-run smartphone app before approaching a legal port of entry or face a tougher bar for asylum if they cross the border illegally.

Migrant numbers initially plummeted after the announcement of the new rule, but in recent weeks began rising again, driven in part by thousands of migrants fleeing Venezuela who cannot be deported easily because of chilly relations between the US and the Venezuelan government.

Border Patrol agents have encountered more than 245,000 people entering the United States in the Rio Grande Valley Sector in the current fiscal year, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in the federal register post.

"There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas," Mayorkas said.

The increase of migrants has strained US cities at the border and farther north. The mayor of Eagle Pass, Texas, declared a state of emergency last month due to a "severe undocumented immigrant surge" into the city as several thousand migrants reportedly arrived in recent days.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday began a trip to Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador to tell would-be migrants that his city cannot accommodate them.