The US Department of Homeland Security announced that the Biden administration leveraged sweeping executive power to waive 26 federal laws in South Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security posted the announcement on the U.S. Federal Registry with few details outlining the construction in Starr County, Texas, which is part of a busy Border Patrol sector seeing “high illegal entry.” According to government data, about 245,000 illegal entries have been recorded so far this fiscal year in the Rio Grande Valley Sector which contains 21 counties.
BREAKING: The Biden administration says there is an “immediate need” to wave regulations and build a border wall as the migrant crisis spirals out of control.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 5, 2023
Remarkable. 4 years ago this was “racist.” Now they’re advocating for it.
“There is presently an acute and immediate… pic.twitter.com/OREJNUkWcl
“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,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, stated in the notice.
The Department of Homeland Security posted the announcement on the U.S. Federal Registry with few details outlining the construction in Starr County, Texas, which is part of a busy Border Patrol sector seeing “high illegal entry.” According to government data, about 245,000 illegal entries have been recorded so far this fiscal year in the Rio Grande Valley Sector which contains 21 counties.
“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,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, stated in the notice. MSN
The department said that although it has waived the requirement to abide by a host of rules that any other developer would be required to follow, “it remains committed to environmental stewardship” and will work with other state and federal agencies to make sure that “impacts to the environment, wildlife, and cultural and historic artifacts” are kept to a minimum.
Border wall projects have been piecemeal thus far amid funding shortfalls and an August determination by the U.S. Government Accountability Office that border wall prototypes completed last year were deficient in several areas. GAO said that Customs and Border Patrol tests did not take into consideration the potential costs of some project-specific conditions like building on different types of topographies and negotiating land acquisitions with private owners. The report determined that all four concrete prototypes would present construction crews with extensive challenges and that the four barrier-style models would come with moderate to substantial hurdles. Construction Dive