Category: border

Border Report: Worst December Numbers In History, Nearly 2 Million Illegal Immigrants Since Biden Took Office

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released operational statistics showing the worst December numbers at the border in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) history.

According to the report, there were 178,840 illegal immigrants apprehended at the border in December, breaking the previous record under DHS for that month by over 100,000.

All told, nearly 2 million illegal immigrants have been apprehended at the border since Biden took office just over one year ago.

The numbers also show an increase in illegal border crossing from November which saw 173,620 illegal immigrants apprehended.

RELATED: Biden Calls Fox News Reporter ‘Stupid Son of a B*tch’ At Press Conference

Numbers Show Out Of Control Border

News of the record number of border crossings come as Fox News has obtained exclusive footage of a mass release of single adult illegal immigrants into the country.

“Fox News footage shows several federally contracted buses dropping off dozens of mostly male migrants at a parking garage in Brownsville, Texas,” they report.

After being dropped off at the garage, taxi cabs allegedly arrived and transported the illegal immigrants to a nearby airport where they claimed they were being sent “to destinations including Miami, Houston and Atlanta.”

Fox News reporter Bill Melugin states that CBP is not involved in the release shown in the video.

“CBP tells me they had no involvement with these releases,” he tweeted. “An ICE source tells me these were ICE releases.”

Melugin adds that he is waiting on confirmation.

RELATED: Newt Gingrich Says Some Members Of January 6 Committee Could Face Jail Time – Cheney, Kinzinger Fire Back

No Control

The latest staggering border numbers show that a full year into his term, President Biden is making absolutely no headway in addressing the ever-expanding humanitarian crisis.

In an interview earlier this month, Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Col. Heston Silbert described Biden’s border crisis as “untenable” and “not manageable.”

“Border Patrol’s overwhelmed,” he explained.

Representative Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) described the latest numbers as a “record-breaking (border crisis)” created by “record-breaking incompetence.”

Vice President Kamala Harris is again opting to skip a visit to the southern border and will be traveling instead to Honduras later this month for the inauguration of President-elect Xiomara Castro in an effort to “address the root causes” of illegal immigration.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently argued that the border crisis and the current administration’s “decision to just defy immigration laws” are grounds for impeachment.

“I think there are potentially multiple grounds to consider for impeachment,” Cruz has said. “Probably the most compelling is the utter lawlessness (of) President Biden to enforce the border.”

The post Border Report: Worst December Numbers In History, Nearly 2 Million Illegal Immigrants Since Biden Took Office appeared first on The Political Insider.

Lara Trump Calls Out AOC And Democrats For Hypocrisy On Border Crisis

Posted on by LifeZette

Fox News contributor Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of former President Donald Trump, just called out Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for their hypocrisy regarding the border crisis that many say was created by Joe Biden.

Lara Trump Sounds Off

“We had the most secure border under my father-in-law, under President Donald Trump that we have had in decades, and I think the best thing possible is to discourage people from making that really dangerous, awful journey north through our southern border,” Trump said.

“The problem is that the Biden administration has said, ‘Well, if they come, we’ll take you in,’ So guess what’s going to continue to happen,” she added. “You’re going to continue to have all of these children, you know, flooding our southern border.”

Related: Lindsey Graham Declares Lara Trump ‘Biggest Winner’ Of Impeachment Trial As He Backs Her For Senate

“It is so sad. It is so hard to watch, but we have to get this under control,” Trump continued. “This is not fair to these kids. It’s not fair to Americans who are footing the bill now. $86 million to pay for hotel rooms for illegal immigrants.”

“People that are breaking our law, coming to America, we are paying $86 million for hotel rooms,” she said. “It is totally unacceptable, but you know what? We don’t expect to see that change because this seems almost like it’s part of the Biden plan, sadly.”

Trump Doubles Down

Not stopping there, Trump went on to call out the “total hypocrisy” that is happening here.

“It’s total hypocrisy. You bring up a great point,” she continued. “The way they covered this under the Trump administration versus the Biden administration is total hypocrisy.”

“Where is the outrage from the folks on the left? Where is AOC down there doing a photo op crying in front of a wall?” Trump said. “Because I have news for her, it’s much worse right now than it ever was under the Trump administration, yet it has been crickets from those folks. I think it tells a very scary story.”

Related: Lara Trump May Go For North Carolina Senate Seat

‘They know that they have millions of illegal immigrants coming to America,” she added. “They are trying to change our voting laws. They are hoping one day that all of these folks can go in and vote with no ID because that’s one of the things in HR-1 that they are proposing.”

“These are their new voters, and it is a terrifying prospect,” Trump concluded. “If we let everybody flee flow over our southern border guys, we lose our country. It is a very, very scary thing going on.”

This piece was written by James Samson on March 29, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
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Five Questions Joe Biden Must Be Asked At His First Press Conference – But Probably Won’t

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

President Biden is expected to hold his first formal press conference on Thursday, over two months since his inauguration.

His effort in hiding from the media broke a 100-year record, leaving journalists with a healthy pool of topics with which to discuss.

Here are five questions that the President must be asked during today’s press conference:

Is There A Crisis At The Border?

The border crisis may be the only guarantee on the list to be addressed by reporters. The situation at the U.S.-Mexico border has become nothing short of a disaster and can’t be ignored – even by a normally compliant lapdog media.

Will reporters demand President Biden define the situation as a crisis, though? That remains to be seen.

The Biden administration has been reluctant to use the word “crisis” to define the debacle of their own making.

Still, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has admitted the current situation leaves the United States on pace to see the most migrants breaching the border “in the last 20 years” while Mexican officials have argued the Biden administration has created a “boom time for (drug) cartels.”

But he must admit what is happening is a crisis.

As Senator Lindsey Graham says, “It’s pretty hard to fix a problem if you don’t know what the problem is.”

When Will You Be Raising Taxes?

Perhaps there are more glamorous questions on this list, but Americans – and readers of The Political Insider – who are struggling during the pandemic economy may be most interested in knowing if taxes will be raised on them or their employers, and how it might affect them and their families.

Barron’s reports that “Biden’s tax policy could bring the corporate tax rate as high as 28%, from the current 21%.”

And reporters at the press conference may want to ask the President about a campaign pledge saying, “If you make less than $400,000, you won’t see one single penny in additional federal tax.”

That claim has already been called into question, however.

Americans will most likely want to know why and how taxes are going to be raised during a pandemic, especially when the President recently claimed his $1.9 trillion “relief bill” and direct payments were what people struggling needed.

Do You Support Nancy Pelosi’s Effort To Overturn A State-Certified Election?

This should be a piece of cake for the media – especially considering how they lambasted Donald Trump for not accepting election results over the past five months.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in discussing the state-certified victory of Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R), who defeated Democrat Rita Hart by six votes in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, is currently pushing an effort to overturn the election.

Fox News reporter Chad Pergram asked Pelosi if she “could … see a scenario … of unseating the current member and seating Rita Hart?”

“We’ll see where that takes us,” she replied. “There could be a scenario to that extent.”

Biden must be asked if he accepts the results of a certified election or if he, like Pelosi, supports overruling a bipartisan commission on this particular race.

The hypocrisy that might be revealed would be staggering.

Do You Support Abolishing The Filibuster?

Axios recently reported that President Biden, according to sources close to him, is “fully prepared to support the dashing of the Senate’s filibuster rule to allow Democrats to pass voting rights and other trophy legislation for his party.”

The filibuster is designed to prolong debate and delay or prevent a vote on a bill. Ending debate requires the agreement of three-fifths (60) of Senators, or in today’s Congressional makeup – 10 Republicans would have to join the majority party.

This is a crucial topic as the Democrats’ push to pass the voting rights bill H.R. 1, which is a major overhaul of election law.

“It is a brazen and shameless power grab by Democrats,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) explains. “It speaks volumes that this is HR 1 and S1, that the number 1 priority of Democrats is … keeping Democrats in power for 100 years.”

The American people need to know if the man they just voted into office supports such a brazen power grab.

Do You Still Feel Andrew Cuomo Is The ‘Gold Standard’ Of Leadership?

President Biden has spent weeks now tiptoeing around the many scandals surrounding Andrew Cuomo.

One way to get him on record would be for reporters to ask him about his own words in describing the New York Governor.

“Andrew Cuomo, thank you for your leadership and the example you’ve set for all Americans during this pandemic,” Biden tweeted in August.

POLL: Will the media ask Biden ANY hard questions, or give him a total pass?

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During an appearance on The Jimmy Fallon Show in April, months earlier, Biden suggested Cuomo had “done one hell of a job” and “I think he’s the gold standard.”

Biden’s White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, has been asked the question, but Biden himself must commit.

The former “gold standard” is now embroiled in:

  • A nursing home scandal, in which his executive order forced facilities to take in COVID-positive patients.
  • Administration officials admitting they hid those numbers from the DOJ.
  • Multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including a groping claim that has been referred to police.
  • Claims of bullying and verbal abuse by fellow lawmakers and media members.
  • The latest scandal involves Cuomo directing health officials to prioritize testing for his family in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

What They’ll Really Ask Biden At The Press Conference

Even if the White House press pool decides to ask President Biden about any of these topics, there is little doubt they will frame the queries in a friendly manner.

There will be few combative moments that became a routine part of the press conferences with former President Donald Trump.

In fact, you’re more likely to see questions about cats and ice cream than you are the above matters.

Americans deserve better than this. Will the press conference provide that?

We shall see.

 

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Gingrich Accuses Biden Of Laying Out ‘Welcome Mat’ for Illegal Aliens – Will Shake The ‘Fabric Of American Society’

Posted on by LifeZette

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich went on Fox News on Thursday to blast President Joe Biden and warn of the impact his immigration policies could have on the United States.

Gingrich Attacks Biden

Gingrich went so far as to say that Biden is “detached from reality,” and is laying out the “welcome mat” by signaling to the world that the United States is “open for illegal immigration.” He added that the results of this will be catastrophic and will shake the “fabric of American society.”

“When you’re dealing with a president who forgets the name of his secretary of Defense and forgets the name of the Pentagon, he could probably, I don’t know that he walks away but probably sit away forever,” Gingrich said. “Why would any of this affect him? He will say, ‘Oh gee, I guess that’s probably a problem.’”

“And I think that we really underestimate the degree to which he’s detached from reality and the degree to which people will, later on, look back and say, ‘Gosh, there were terrible consequences, why didn’t we know better?’” Gingrich added.

Related: Newt Gingrich Warns Trump Will Keep Dominating Republican Party – ‘Nobody Can Fight Him’

Gingrich Doubles Down

Gingrich continued: 

“Well, we did know better, but we adopted a policy deliberately that sends a signal — you know, everywhere in the world, whether they’re watching ‘Fox & Friends,’ whether they’re just talking to themselves, people gossip, and they learn and everywhere in the world right now the signal is out that the U.S. is a welcome mat, that President Biden would love for you to come stay, and the economic opportunities in America, despite everything, are still so much better than in most of the world.”

“You can’t blame a father or a mother who wants their child to grow up here, rather than in poverty, but you can blame the American government for not being honest about the cost,” the former Speaker said.

Related: Newt Gingrich Slams Trump Impeachment Lawyers – ‘Absolute Lack Of A Coherent Defense’

“This is going to be extraordinarily expensive, and it’s going to shake, I think, the fabric of American society,” Gingrich concluded. “And … my guess is that in four years of the Harris-Biden administration, you’re going to actually see an enormous influx, probably in the neighborhood of 6 to 15 million people.”

This piece was written by James Samson on March 11, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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The post Gingrich Accuses Biden Of Laying Out ‘Welcome Mat’ for Illegal Aliens – Will Shake The ‘Fabric Of American Society’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

In likely final immigration rant as president, Trump worries about his wall being taken down

Posted on by Gabe Ortiz

Donald Trump, set to be the first president to have been impeached twice, went to the U.S./Mexico border Tuesday to do exactly what we said he’d do. While there was of course a bunch of self-congratulation for the border fencing built with stolen U.S. taxpayer funds because Mexico never did end up paying for it, Trump ended his final border visit as president the same way he kicked off his racist campaign in 2015.

“President Trump traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday and recited a bunch of old claims about immigrants and crime that we’ve long rated false or misleading,” The Washington Post reported. “Our practice is not to award Pinocchios when we round up multiple claims, but Trump as usual butchered the facts with his spin about immigrants, ending his term as it began.” Immigrant rights advocacy group RAICES noted that networks didn’t broadcast his bullshit live, either.

Some racist lies uttered by Trump in Texas I’m not going to go into here because after five years I’m sick and tired of having to justify the humanity of immigrants following some disgusting speech he made somewhere. While I’m sure this man will remain a boil on the butt of humanity post Jan. 20, I hope this is the final time I ever have to address his racist remarks as president. If you want to read exactly what he said in Texas, here’s The Post’s roundup. 

We should however address some of his lies about policy, because this is damage that President-elect Biden can immediately begin to reverse after he takes office next week.

“One of the biggest loopholes we closed was asylum fraud under the old broken system,” Trump falsely claimed on Tuesday. “If you merely requested asylum, you were released into the country. The most ridiculous thing anyone’s ever seen. And we were taking in some people that you didn’t want to have in your country. We instituted a series of historic policy changes to shut down asylum fraud, and that’s what we did.”

“Wrong on multiple levels,” The Post corrected. Or as I immediately thought, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

What Trump has done is shut down the U.S. asylum system to just about everybody, through dangerous and unlawful policies like Migrant Protection Protocols, or Remain in Mexico, and the politically motivated Stephen Miller order using the novel coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to quickly expel thousands of asylum-seekers, including children.

“As of Jan 2020 (1 yr ago) @humanrights1st had tracked at least 816 public reports of murder, torture, rape, kidnapping, and other violent attacks against asylum-seekers and migrants returned to Mexico under MPP,” RAICES tweeted. “Trump's take: ‘MPP saved countless lives from crime.’” In shocking audio obtained by CNN last year, the Trump administration in fact admitted the policy was dangerous after having publicly defended it as having “successfully provided protections” to asylum seekers.

Parents forced to wait for their U.S. immigration court dates in Mexico under the policy have become so desperate, that they’ve been forced to send their children to the U.S. by themselves, resulting in another form of family separation. Among those parents has been Alexis Martinez, who recounted to NPR in late 2019 watching his children, 5-year-old Benjamin and 7-year-old Osiel, holding hands as they crossed into the U.S. alone. 

”All in all, today's appearance was a victory lap (if you can even call it that) of the only thing in his presidency Trump was able to accomplish: dismantle our immigration system as we know it,” RAICES continued. The organization noted that Trump spent time praising the out-of-control agents of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, something that “reeks of danger. These agencies were already vile & during the last 4 years the Trump admin fostered an already rampant racism & xenophobia within them.”

But in the end, Vox reports that Trump’s main concern wasn’t the lives he’s destroyed through his policies or the enduring damage policies like Remain in Mexico has created, but instead about his precious, stupid wall. “We can’t let the next administration even think about taking it down,” he said according to the report. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to stop building when he takes office next week. He needs to knock the motherfucker down too.

CNN’s Brian Stelter: ‘Responsible Networks’ Shouldn’t Air Trump’s Visit To Border Wall Live And in Full

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

CNN reporter Brian Stelter, who produces a newsletter called ‘Reliable Sources,’ claims “responsible TV networks” shouldn’t air President Trump’s visit to the border wall.

The President is scheduled to visit Alamo, Texas today to check on the progress of the wall on the U.S. southern border.

In the latest iteration of his newsletter, Stelter dismissed Trump’s appearance as a “stunt” and tried to shame other networks into not airing the event for fear that the President could make controversial comments.

“There’s a lot of concern about what he’ll say and how he’ll say it,” the CNN reporter said. “Let me just reiterate what I said on CNN Monday morning: Responsible TV networks will not air Trump live and in full. Not after his incitement last week.”

He then claimed his network and other far-left outlets would be more responsible in airing the event than say, Fox News.

“But I think we’ll see a repeat of last Wednesday’s rally coverage, meaning that Fox and other pro-Trump networks will air Trump live, while other outlets will exercise editorial judgment and ingest what he says, then decide if any of it is newsworthy,” surmised Stelter.

RELATED: WH Official: Trump To Visit Texas To See Border Wall Construction – A ‘Promise Kept’

CNN’s Brian Stelter Wants to Censor Trump’s Visit to the Border Wall

It’s bad enough that Big Tech companies are actively doing everything in their power to suppress news and statements made by the President, but now CNN, a supposedly mainstream outlet, is rallying their liberal peers to join in.

Think about what he is essentially saying in that message.

We, the arbiters of truth at CNN, will watch President Trump’s visit to the border wall first, and only then will we decide if you, the viewer, have a right to know what happened.

Glenn Greenwald, a co-founder of The Intercept, slammed Stelter for a very similar interpretation.

“Silicon Valley defenders: Censoring Trump from all the monopolistic platforms is no big deal. He still has a press room,” Greenwald mocked.

He added, “The press: we should censor what Trump says and only broadcast and report the parts we want the public to hear, concealing the rest.”

RELATED: Hillary Clinton Calls Capitol Riots ‘Result Of White-Supremacist Grievances,’ Agrees Trump Should Be Impeached

The Media is the Most Corrupt Institution in America

Greenwald also highlighted a New York Times columnist who he says is perfectly content with Big Tech censorship “as long as they use that power to censor her adversaries, not her allies.”

“That is the authoritarian mindset in its purest expression, right there,” he added. “As long as Silicon Valley monopoly power is harnessed to silence those who think differently than I, I support it.”

Greenwald points out that there hasn’t been a single voice of opposition to silencing Trump and his supporters, with many media outlets actually cheering the Big Tech monopolies on.

Back to Stelter, the reality here is that he doesn’t want CNN to cover a story that might put President Trump in a positive light, like a visit to the border wall.

Do you think for one moment CNN wouldn’t cover the event “live and in full” if Trump were to discuss the ongoing impeachment effort or if he were to make a statement of resignation?

Instead, he’s there to celebrate an American achievement, as one White House official put it: “The completion of more than 400 miles of border wall — a promise made, promise kept.”

That’s what they really don’t want you to hear about. And it just might work, now that the President is unable to share videos of his speech or his accomplishments on social media.

What kind of country do we live in where the one man who can’t speak to the American people directly right now is the President of the United States?

The post CNN’s Brian Stelter: ‘Responsible Networks’ Shouldn’t Air Trump’s Visit To Border Wall Live And in Full appeared first on The Political Insider.

Trump to end presidency the same way he kicked off run, by attacking immigrants

Posted on by Gabe Ortiz

Soon-to-be-twice impeached Donald Trump is ending his white supremacist presidency the same way he started his campaign more than five years ago: racist, anti-immigrant fearmongering. Having basically gone into hiding after inciting a violent mob of seditionist supporters who ransacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results—and resulted in numerous deaths, including of a police officer—Trump is traveling to Texas on Tuesday to bluster about the border wall that Mexico never did end up paying for.

The Associated Press reports that missing from the visit will be unlawfully appointed acting DHS Sec. Chad Wolf, who resigned Monday. But following the D.C. attack (nice job securing the “homeland” there, Chad), elected officials, editorial boards, and border communities are demanding Trump stay away too. "Normally we would welcome a presidential visit to our state. Not now,” the American-Statesman Editorial Board wrote. “Not by a president who is unhinged and unrepentant for the violent mob he sent last week to the Capitol."

“The stated reason for Trump’s visit to Alamo is to tout his administration’s work on the border wall and immigration,” the American-Statesman Editorial Board continued. “Indeed, Trump is wrapping up his term on the same note that he launched his political career, stoking fear about immigrants and exaggerating his accomplishments.”

June 16, 2015, will always live in infamy as the day he launched his presidential campaign by descending the escalators at Trump Tower to call Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists. ”When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

His comments were blatantly racist and disqualifying, but too many in the mainstream media were afraid to say so and instead merely labeled them “controversial.” Worse yet, others dismissed them as a joke. It wasn’t a joke or “controversial” to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans like me. He was talking about us. He talking about my parents and two older sisters, all born in Mexico. He was talking about me, the son of Mexican immigrants.

“Trump acts as if his legacy along the border will be construction of a ‘beautiful’ wall,” American-Statesman continued. “In truth, his legacy is one of destruction: Crying children pulled from their parents’ arms as part of his shocking family separation policy, with hundreds of kids still waiting to be reunited. Migrant kids dying in U.S. custody for lack of proper care. A shameful humanitarian crisis just south of the border as the U.S. turned its back on those who are lawfully seeking asylum. A degradation of America’s values and standing in the world.”

Now having incited a violent mob that my colleague David Neiwert writes was “intent on taking hostages and murdering them” and is now leading to an unprecedented second impeachment, Trump is returning to what he always goes to when desperate or in need of an ego boost: attacking immigrants (and doing it as likely his final trip in office).

“Rather than spend his last days in the Oval Office addressing the pressing Covid-19 pandemic and ensuring an orderly transition, Trump is doubling down on his xenophobic, white supremacist agenda,” Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR) executive director Fernando García said in a statement received by Daily Kos. Indeed, the City of Alamo said in a statement it hasn’t even been contacted about Trump’s visit.

“His presence at the borderland is a provocation, and an act of violence in and of itself,” García continued. “Border communities are calling for the dismantlement of the wall of shame, racism and white supremacy. The wall and all it represents have no place in our society, and Trump must be held accountable.”

President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and our wins in Georgia provide an opportunity to take both executive and legislative action to protect undocumented communities attacked by the outgoing administration. I hope Trump has the time of his wretched life at his precious wall Tuesday because Biden has also pledged to not build another foot of it—and because it was built using swindled funds and has caused “incalculable” harm in the borderlands, there’s a strong case for knocking the motherfucker down. The human costs of Trump’s racism, however, the fomenting of violence and the unleashing of white supremacist forces, will not be so easy to scale back. That’s the “legacy” he’s leaving us. 

“It is a presidency that has prioritized sowing division, undermining our institutions and norms, and working tirelessly to marginalize the ‘other,’” American Immigration Council policy counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick writes. “For Trump, there were no people more “other” than those who came to our border and asked for our help.” He writes that that to truly “defeat Trumpism, as a nation we must embrace a more humane approach toward those who are different from us, one that respects the law and our obligations to the most vulnerable.”

“The Biden administration can start by restoring humanitarian protection, and finally moving away from the deterrence-based mindsets of the past decades and create a truly welcoming process at the border,” Reichlin-Melnick continued.

WH Official: Trump To Visit Texas To See Border Wall Construction – A ‘Promise Kept’

Posted on by Becky Noble

President Donald Trump will spend part of his last full week in office in Alamo, Texas checking on the progress of the wall on the U.S. southern border. Roughly 450 miles of border wall have been completed thus far.

The border wall was the signature campaign promise issued by Trump and his administration. 

Trump’s Border Wall – “Promises Kept”

The President’s visit to observe the ongoing wall construction comes as Congress considers a vote of impeachment stemming from last week’s violent protests in Washington D.C. 

An unidentified Senior White House official announced the visit, which will happen on Tuesday.

“President Trump is expected to travel to Alamo, Texas, on Tuesday to mark the completion of more than 400 miles of border wall — a promise made, promise kept — and his Administration’s efforts to reform our broken immigration system,” the White House official told Fox News.

Building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border was a mainstay topic during the 2016 presidential election as then candidate Trump traveled the country. “Build the wall!” was a common chant among Trump’s supporters at his rallies.

The idea behind building a border wall was to protect the roughly 1000 miles that does not have any natural barriers. Trump had promised to have 450 miles completed by the end of 2020.

Congress recently passed an omnibus spending bill that included $16 billion in funding.

However Acting Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Mark Morgan said that the $1.375 billion included in that package was enough to complete at least 800 miles of border wall.

In addition to the completed 450 miles, there is another 350 miles ready with funding to go in the ground. The contracts for those parts of the wall have already been awarded.  

Biden May Halt Border Construction

Construction on the wall could halt within the next few weeks, however.

According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, Biden has stated that, while he would not tear down any existing wall, but he would cease construction of any future stretches of wall.

Biden says he favors a, “high-tech virtual wall to ensure border security.” 

In an article in the Washington Post, the Post claims it has reviewed estimates by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and that if Biden were to discontinue construction, it would save the U.S. government $2.6 million. 

However, If Biden were to halt construction, that could leave the the U.S. government, and in turn, taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars in settlement fees should those contracts be abandoned. 

CBP Commissioner Morgan also went on to say that, not only would walking away rom the project cost taxpayers in funds, it would also cost “thousands of jobs.”

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