STARR COUNTY, Texas – The Biden administration is facing scrutiny and controversy over its recent decision to construct a new border wall in Starr County, but funding for the wall was appropriated in 2019 during the previous administration.
“Trump allocated a certain amount of funding from military construction projects and reallocated it to the wall under an emergency order that he had issued while he was president,” said professor of political science Mark Kaswan at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
President Joe Biden rescinded that emergency order on his first day in office in 2021.
Fast forward to Fall 2023, plans of building the 18-foot border barrier are back on the table.
“I think a couple [of] billion dollars that Congress had appropriated for building walls were still there, and essentially, the Biden administration’s argument is that that binds them to actually build the wall,” said Kaswan.
The Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, stated in a press release that the administration is compelled to follow the law, adding the law requires the government to use these funds to build the wall.
The Biden Administration has since waived 26 federal laws to allow for expedited construction, but many are still concerned with the process.
Human rights and environmental activist Jazmin Santibañez Contreras says some laws had provided significant ecological protections.
“It affects our water, our air quality, our life quality, and our sensitive ecosystems for animals that all depend on the river and crossing those barriers,” said Santibañez Contreras.
Kaswan went on to reference the ‘takings clause’, which allows the government to take property if it feels it needs to but has to provide fair compensation to landowners, a problem he says could delay construction plans.
“The Federal Government has had a terrible time, in some cases, with landowners who simply are not accepting the compensation that the government is offering,” said Kaswan.
In many cases, Kaswan says landowners who favor the wall are even discouraged from taking the compensation offered as it isn’t nearly as much.
“So even some ranchers who are in general kind of supportive of the wall and concerned about the impacts of immigrants who are coming across their border, can file lawsuits to stop the federal government because the compensation that’s being offered is inadequate,” said Kaswan.
Another concern locals have is the impact the border could have on the water flow during flooding.
“Anybody who has ever seen a flood knows that there’s a great deal of debris that is carried by the water, and that debris then gets pushed up against the bollards and effectively acts as a dam and then creates its own kind of solid wall that the water can’t get through,” said Kaswan.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection proposed design would build 20 miles of new border barrier system in Starr County, TX.
The proposed project includes 18-foot high, six-inch diameter bollards embedded into a movable, concrete, jersey barrier-style base.
Other system elements of the proposed project include the following:
- An area of 60 to 100 feet wide to accommodate a Functional Class-2 (FC-2) maintenance road and patrol road.
- Light poles and lighting
- Gates
- Cameras
- Shelters for fiber optic and close-circuit television (CCTV) equipment
- Erosion and drainage control
- Access roads
- Water for construction and dust suppression purposes
- Lay-down yards