Washington, October 6 (Presensa Latina) The President of the United States, Joe Biden, has made a shift in his immigration policy that today brings him closer to the measures that caused so much criticism during the administration of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump.
Some analysts are calling Democrats’ decision to green light the construction of a 20-mile (32-kilometer) stretch of border wall in Texas under the pretext of stopping the wave of illegal border crossings into US territory hypocritical and contradictory.
In 2020, candidate Biden promised not to build another inch of wall if elected, and one of his first actions upon taking office in January 2021 was to stop construction of the anti-immigrant fence.
However, in a recent announcement, he flouted 26 laws to restart border wall construction.
This will be the first time he will use broad executive powers, as were used repeatedly in the Trump era (2017-2021).
The laws they would waive include several of the same laws that Democrats have tried to protect in the past.
For example, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (Clean Water Act), and the Clean Air Act.
Given this turnaround from Biden, Trump, who made the wall one of his key campaign promises in 2016, reacted immediately and launched the arrows on his Truth Social platform.
“Will Joe Biden apologize to me and the United States for taking so long to move and allowing our country to be flooded with 15 million illegal immigrants from unknown places?” he wrote.
The Biden administration will also resume deportations of Venezuelans directly to their country to stem the record-breaking influx of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Border Patrol reported nearly 300,000 encounters in the Rio Grande Valley sector between October last year and last August.
Trump boasted about having built around 300 miles (480 kilometers) of border wall when he made his then-candidacy for re-election official in August 2020.
The Republican declared: “The wall will be finished soon and our numbers on the border are the best in history” and launched a phrase that caused controversy when he assured: “By the way, Mexico will pay for the wall if you do have done.” I don’t know.” ».
The border between the USA and Mexico is 3,142 kilometers long and before Trump moved into the executive villa, there were barriers or dividing fences on around a third of the border, i.e. around 1.50 kilometers.