President Biden on Thursday said he has no choice but to build a new border wall, saying his hands are tied by laws Congress passed ordering that billions of dollars be spent on constructing the barrier.
Still, he said he doesn’t believe a wall works.
Speaking at the White House, Mr. Biden said he fought to erase the money from the budget but failed. Facing a deadline set in law, he said he had to start building.
“The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t,” he said. “In the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated for. I can’t stop that.”
His comments came a day after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared an “immediate” need to build more border wall, issuing an order waiving 26 laws in order to speed construction.
The waivers cover iconic environmental and historic site protections such as the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Eagle Protection Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Mr. Biden promised in the 2020 campaign not to build “another foot” of the wall, which was the marquee promise of his opponent, President Donald Trump.
Mr. Biden issued an order on his first day in office halting construction, forcing contractors to walk away from work in progress and leaving tons of wall-building equipment to sit and rust.
But he could not escape the fiscal 2019 appropriations law, which set aside $1.3 billion to build border walls.
While delaying the building was deemed legal by the Government Accountability Office, the Biden administration concluded it couldn’t refuse it in perpetuity.
Source:Washington Times
