White House waives 26 federal laws to allow building border wall in Texas

HOUSTON, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Facing the fresh surge of migrants influx, the White House has waived 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in Starr County, southern Texas, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Wednesday.

It marks a U-turn of the Biden administration since building the border wall was a signature promise by former President Donald Trump in his 2016 campaign and has been fiercely criticized by the Democrats since then. President Joe Biden halted the construction during his first week in the White House in Jan. 2021.

"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," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a notice posted on the U.S. Federal Register, an office that prepares and publishes a wide variety of public documents.

Mayorkas said he is using his authority provided by Congress to waive these laws, including the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act.

The waivers avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws, making way for using funds from a related congressional appropriation in 2019 to build up the border wall in Starr County in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.

The piecemeal construction will add up to an additional 20 miles (about 32 km) to the existing border barrier system in the area, local media reported.

There is a "high illegal entry" in the county, with more than 245,000 migrant encounters recorded in the region during the current fiscal year, latest government data showed.

"After years of denying that a border wall and other physical barriers are effective, the DHS announcement represents a sea change in the administration's thinking: A secure wall is an effective tool for maintaining control of our borders," Dan Stein, chief of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in a statement.

U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texan Democrat, voiced his different opinion regarding the renewed wall-building effort in a statement.

"A border wall is a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem. It will not bolster border security in Starr County," he said.

Some environmental advocates expressed concern that the construction will run through public lands, habitats of endangered plants and species like the Ocelot, a spotted wild cat.

During the Trump administration, about 450 miles (724 km) of barriers were built along the southwest U.S.-Mexico border between 2017 and January 2021.

There were more than 260,000 encounters at the southern U.S. border in September, which would be the highest monthly total on record, according to a Fox News report, citing Customs and Border Protection sources.