Biden said the money was earmarked for the border wall by the US Congress under Trump in 2019.
Washington:
US President Joe Biden on Thursday defended plans to expand the border wall with Mexico, saying he didn’t think such barriers would work but was bound by laws introduced under Donald Trump.
Democrat Biden promised during his 2020 White House race with Trump that he would abandon the Republican’s signature policies and not build any more walls.
But his own Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday the construction of a new facility in south Texas to meet an “acute and immediate need” as migrants continue to cross.
Biden, who is neck-and-neck with rival Trump ahead of a likely 2024 election rematch, insisted his predecessor had his hands tied to the wall building.
“They should use the money for what it is intended for. I can’t stop that,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
He said the money was appropriated for the border wall by Congress under Trump in 2019, and that lawmakers had since rejected his calls to reallocate the funds.
When asked if he thought the border wall was effective, Biden simply replied: “No.”
– ‘No choice’ –
The new section of the wall will be built in the Rio Grande Valley sector with a high number of illegal entries at the US-Mexico border, where there have been more than 245,000 attempted illegal entries this fiscal year.
But Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas later said the announcement was “taken out of context.”
“The action we took — we had no choice,” Mayorkas said during a news conference in Mexico with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“There is no new administration policy regarding the border wall.”
Illegal immigration has become a major political headache for Biden, with opposition Republicans accusing him of lax border policies.
The border issue has even increased uncertainty over U.S. aid to Ukraine, with some Republicans refusing to approve funds until Biden takes action on migrants.
Meanwhile, some Democrats, including progressive lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, criticized the wall decision. Conservationists did the same after it emerged that 20 federal environmental laws would be lifted to build the expansion.
The White House said it was “categorically untrue” that there had been a presidential reversal.
“We have to obey the law and that is what we are doing,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
– ‘I was right’ –
Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said the Biden administration’s move showed: “I was right to build 560 miles … brand new, beautiful border wall.”
“Will Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long to act, and allowing our country to be overrun with 15 million illegal immigrants, from places unknown,” Trump said at his Truth Social platform.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador criticized the US plan, calling it a “setback” ahead of the talks with Blinken.
Their talks came after a spike in the number of people — mainly from Central America and Venezuela — trying to cross from Mexico to the United States.
The Biden administration announced later Thursday that it would resume direct deportation flights to Venezuela, where U.S. sanctions remain in place over rights abuses.
“This comes after a decision by Venezuela’s authorities to take back their nationals,” a senior government official said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
