Border wall plan meets resistance

More than 100 groups and nonprofit organizations have sent a letter to US President Joe Biden asking him to stop the plan to waive environmental laws to quickly build a border wall through Starr County in South Texas.

"We write to express our profound dismay and opposition to [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas' waiver of 26 federal laws to rush the resumption of border wall construction in Starr County, Texas," reads the letter signed by 120 organizations that was sent on Oct 16. "We must make clear that there is no legal requirement to waive laws that protect vulnerable border communities and wildlife in the appropriations language or elsewhere."

Homeland Security announced on Oct 5 that it was waiving the environmental regulatory laws to build 20 miles of border wall in Starr County. It is the first time the Biden administration waived so many laws to expedite border barrier construction. 

Biden was critical of then-President Donald Trump's border wall project and pledged in his 2020 presidential campaign that he wouldn't build "another foot" of wall. He signed an executive order on his first day in the office to halt any construction of such a wall, saying that it was a waste of money.

But Biden said the law required continued certain wall construction because Congress appropriated money for it in 2019.

"I tried to get to them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money," he said. "They didn't. They wouldn't. And in the meantime, there's nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can't stop that."

When asked whether he believes the border wall works, Biden answered, "No."

However, Cesar Hernandez, a law professor at Ohio State University who grew up near Texas' southern border, wrote on The Hill that Biden is wrong, and Congress didn't require more border wall construction. 

"The law is clear that the money 'shall be authorized.' It doesn't say that the money must be spent," Hernandez said of the bill in February 2019. 

"Just before the year [2019] ended, Congress passed yet another budget bill. It again set aside $1.4 billion for border wall construction. This time it specified that the money 'shall be available only' for 'construction of a barrier system along the southwest border.'" 

"But it said nothing about a requirement," Hernandez said. "If Biden truly thinks the border wall is misguided, or even if he just thinks he ought to keep the promise he made, his administration should put up a fight rather than blame Congress."

The letter pointed to a government report released last month on environmental damages caused by the erected border walls. 

The report by the US Government Accountability Office stated: "From 2017 through January 2021, federal agencies built about 450 miles of barriers along the US Southwest border. To expedite construction, they waived federal environmental and other laws. The construction harmed some cultural and natural resources, for example, by blasting at a tribal burial site and altering water flows."

In Arizona, an ancient spring well was dried up when the government pumped millions of gallons of underground water to mix the cement to build the border wall, and many saguaro cactuses were downed for the same purpose. In Texas, the living conditions of already endangered ocelots became more precarious because of the constructed wall.

According to the report, only 62 percent of barrier miles were built on federal lands. The rest was appropriated from private land. In Starr County, residents are worried that their land would be grabbed by the government to build the wall.

Teacher Nayda Alvarez lives in a tiny alcove west of Rio Grande City. She painted the words "NO BORDER WALL" on her roof after federal officials in the Trump administration first slated the borderlands where her family's homes are for border wall construction. She sued to prevent her land from being taken with the help of a nonprofit. 

She had a couple of years of "stress free" life after Biden took office. Now, her guard is up again. 

Debralee Rodriguez, executive director of the Valley Land Fund, which owns the Salineño Wildlife Preserve in Starr County, told Border Report that she received a letter from Homeland Security  assuring that the border wall construction wouldn't be on their property. 

But she still worries that the noise and lights and activity of nearby construction will drive away the rare birds that people travel from across the world to see.

"We will not have a wall on our 2.5 acres. But that's not to say that there's not going to be neighboring properties that are going to be so fortunate." Rodriguez told Border Report. "Any time there's construction or fragmentation of any land nearby, it's going to be detrimental to the wildlife in the area."

Starr County is part of the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector. It had nearly 300,000 encounters of migrants in fiscal year 2023, which ended on Sept 30.

Starr County Judge Eloy Vera told Border Report that western Starr County, where the new border wall is slated to begin, has few encounters, according to law enforcement information he's been told.

"They should be building it in Del Rio, or El Paso — somewhere where they're crossing by the thousands, not by tens or twenties like they're doing in that area of Starr County," he told Border Report.