President Joe Biden might have campaigned on not building the wall between the United States and Mexico, but the current state of the border disaster is so dire that his Administration is having to reverse course and start putting up a barrier. Former President Trump took to Truth Social to skewer Biden over the mess and announce he is awaiting an apology for Biden’s past comments about the border wall.
As background, President Biden infamously told NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro, during an August of 202 interview with journalists from the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, No. 1.”
Continuing, Biden added, “I’m going to make sure that we have border protection, but it’s going to be based on making sure that we use high-tech capacity to deal with it. And at the ports of entry — that’s where all the bad stuff is happening.”
Now, Biden’s Administration is reversing course. A recent DHS announcement said, “The Secretary of Homeland Security has determined, pursuant to law, that it is necessary to waive certain laws, regulations, and other legal requirements in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in Starr County, Texas.”
Similarly, Secretary Mayorkas said, “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 pursuant to sections 102(a) and 102(b) of [the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996].”
Well, President Trump took to Truth Social to sound off on the matter, saying, “So interesting to watch Crooked Joe Biden break every environmental law in the book to prove that I was right when I built 560 miles (they incorrectly state 450 in story!) of brand new, beautiful border wall.”
Continuing, he said he wanted an apology and highlighted the scope of the border disaster, saying, “As I have stated often, over thousands of years, there are only two things that have consistently worked, wheels, and walls! Will Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long to get moving, and allowing our country to be flooded with 15 million illegals immigrants, from places unknown. I will await his apology!”
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Former President Trump’s campaign, for its part, said, “President Trump is always right. That’s why he built close to 500 miles of powerful new wall on the border, and it would have been finished by now. Instead, Crooked Joe Biden turned our country into one giant sanctuary for dangerous criminal aliens.”
It remains to be seen how seriously the Biden Administration will take the construction of the border barrier, and if its new measures will prove at all effective in stopping the mass flow off illegal immigrants into the country. But, still, some measures being taken is a major improvement over the seemingly wide-open border that has so far characterized 2023.
In our #nabjnahj2020 interview, @JoeBiden promised that 'not another foot of wall would be constructed" on the border. Watch our exchange: pic.twitter.com/rM9OgsYicU
— Lulu NYT (@lourdesgnavarro) August 5, 2020