As the issue of border security has been dominating the headlines as well as the national polls for the next election, Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) is introducing legislation to finish the wall along our southern border. And he’s found an interesting way to pay for the controversial project: by using unused COVID-19 funds to finance the construction and maintenance.
Senator Barrasso introduced the legislation as an amendment to the Border Security Act, which was sponsored by Republicans but has the backing of Democrats.
The Build the Wall Act of 2024 would establish the “Southern Border Wall Construction Fund” and require the Department of Homeland Security to use any unobligated Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLRF) to construct and maintain physical barriers along the southern border of the United States.
“Border walls work. Before President Biden came into office, we were well on our way to a secure and safe southern border. But on his first day in office, the president and Democrats rolled out the welcome mat for millions of illegal immigrants to come into our nation,” says Senator Barrasso. “We must hold Democrats accountable for their open border policies that have created the worst border crisis in our nation’s history. If they are serious about securing our border, they should have no issues voting for a policy that actually works and is already paid for.”
Back in 2015, then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump promised that he would “build a great wall” that would stretch between the Gulf of Mexico, snake through the desert southwest, and end in the Pacific ocean, separating the United States from Mexico.
“Mark my words,” Donald Trump said when he launched his presidential campaign on June 16, 2015. Trump also promised that not only would he build it “inexpensively,” he would also get Mexico to pay for it.
Months after Joe Biden was sworn into office after beating Donald Trump and denying him a second term in office, the new president canceled any further construction of the wall along the southern border. Biden also terminated Trump’s National Emergency declaration concerning the border, the Department of Defense announced in April of 2021.
“DoD has begun taking all necessary actions to cancel border barrier projects and to coordinate with interagency partners,” Pentagon spokesperson Jamal Brown said in a statement. “Today’s action reflects this Administration’s continued commitment to defending our nation and supporting our service members and their families.”
Then, in a stunning policy reversal, the Biden Administration announced that they would resume building a small section of the wall in Texas. Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, said that President Biden needed to build over 20 miles of border wall because he had to due to the administration discovering that it was legally bound to build the designated section of new all because Congress had already approved the funding to do so back in 2019.
“From Day 1, this administration has made clear that a border wall is not the answer,” Mr. Mayorkas said from Mexico City, after a member of the Mexican news media asked about the apparent reversal. “That remains our position, and our position has never wavered,” he said according to the New York Times.
But the justification that Mr. Mayorkas gave in the federal register suggested that the construction along this stretch was needed to stop unauthorized crossings which skyrocketed under the Biden Administration.
Since U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began using its CBP One app for processing of migrants in January 2023, arrivals to ports of entry have risen in tandem with increases in available appointments. Between FY 2022 and FY 2023, arrivals at ports of entry of migrants without prior authorization to enter the United States more than doubled, from 173,000 to 430,000. These arrivals represented 17 percent of overall border encounters during FY 2023, compared to 7 percent the prior year. During the same time, irregular crossings between ports of entry dropped by more than 160,000, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
