On Wednesday, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the White House has waived 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in Starr County in Texas.
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It marks a U-turn of the Biden administration since building the border wall was a signature promise by former President Donald Trump in his 2016 campaign and has been fiercely criticized by the Democrats since then. President Joe Biden halted the construction during his first week in the White House in Jan. 2021.
"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," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, adding that he is using his authority provided by Congress to waive these laws, including the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act.
The waivers avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws, making way for using funds from a related congressional appropriation in 2019 to build up the border wall in Starr County in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
The piecemeal construction will add up to an additional 20 miles to the existing border barrier system in the area. There is a "high illegal entry" in the county, with more than 245,000 migrant encounters recorded in the region during the current fiscal year.
"After years of denying that a border wall and other physical barriers are effective, the DHS announcement represents a sea change in the administration's thinking: A secure wall is an effective tool for maintaining control of our borders," said Dan Stein, chief of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
"A border wall is a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem. It will not bolster border security in Starr County," said U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texan Democrat, who voiced a different opinion regarding the renewed wall-building effort.
Some environmental advocates expressed concern that the construction will run through public lands, habitats of endangered plants and species like the Ocelot, a spotted wild cat.