CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Migrant surges aren’t new, but a recent wave of new arrivals has prompted President Joe Biden to change course on his longstanding position, waiving 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction on Wednesday.
It marked the administration’s first use of sweeping executive power to pave the way for building more border barriers — a tactic used often during the Trump presidency.
“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,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. Homeland Security secretary, stated in a government notice.
Critics have blasted the move to build more of the wall, especially for the environmental damage they say it will cause.
The White House is defending the president.
“This is not a policy choice that the Biden-Harris Administration made; it was mandated by Congress and DHS has to follow the law,” a White House official said. “Funds were appropriated in 2019 under Republican leadership for this specific purpose and DHS was required to use funds for this purpose by the end of FY23. President Biden has repeatedly called on Congress to cancel or reappropriate these funds to smarter, more effective border security measures.”
According to experts, several countries across the Western Hemisphere are grappling with escalating humanitarian issues in countries like Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela. They are up against outdated US immigration laws and a misinformation campaign abroad run by human smugglers looking to cash in.
Behind the numbers are people. Underpinning the increasingly emotional partisan politics of it all, a South Florida immigration attorney told Local 10 News that the reality of U.S. labor supply, the vacuum of immigration reform, and Mexican cartels spinning falsehoods that the U..S. border is open to make money off desperate people, is fueling the surge.
“We are a nation of laws, and the Immigration and Nationality Act is one of the laws that we have to follow in this country,” Laura F. Kelley, with LFK Immigration Law, said. “The Immigration and Nationality Act says that people have the right to seek asylum within our borders, even if they cross unlawfully. They have the right to present their case for asylum.”
Born in the Texas border city of McAllen, Kelley is familiar with the nation’s long tussle over immigration policy, spanning decades and different administrations, including the Biden administration.
“The geopolitical realities don’t have anything to do with the administration and who is running our government,” she said. “People are coming from failed states like Cuba and Venezuela. People are largely apprehended at the border.”
In May, Mayorkas commented on the challenges, saying “More than 100,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have arrived lawfully through the pathway we have made available to them, and we reduced border encounters from these groups by 90% between December of last year and March of this year. Our President has led the largest expansion of lawful pathways ever.”
He continued: “At the same time, we are clear-eyed about the challenges we are likely to face in the days and weeks ahead, which have the potential to be very difficult.”
Back in the summer of 2020, when Biden was working to win votes, he told reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists this: “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.”
In what appears to be a campaign trail promise reversal, the Department of Homeland Security announcing it is necessary to waive several laws and regulations to fast-track building a wall in Starr County, Texas.
“How long would it take to start building it? How much money is it going to cost? Are these resources better used elsewhere?” Kelley said. “Unfortunately, the number of migrants we have on the southern border is so many that our infrastructure literally cannot handle it.”
And underpinning the surge of migrants at the southern border are worsening economic and political conditions across Latin America and the Caribbean.
“We have failed states in Haiti, failed states in Venezuela, and in Cuba,” Kelley said.
Also an issue: outdated U.S. immigration laws and human smugglers making a mint spreading misinformation pertaining to policy shifts.
“They absolutely have a marketing campaign because they benefit most from these people’s lives being in danger by traveling in this manner,” Kelley said. “I do believe that there is an intense marketing campaign by cartels, by the transnational criminal organizations that make the most. So there are people who are incentivized to take this treacherous journey.”
What Kelley said is needed is what Congress has been unable to do for decades — pass bipartisan immigration reform.
Government notice: