President Joe Biden said he doesn’t think that a border wall is effective just a day after his administration cleared a path to allow more construction of the border wall on federally protected land in Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will construct a portion of a border wall in the Rio Grande Valley sector of Texas amid a surge in illegal immigrants entering the country, according to an unpublished Wednesday federal register filing. Biden told reporters Thursday that he tried to get his administration to redirect the money being spent on the border wall but under the law, he “can’t stop that.” (RELATED: KJP Claims Biden Has Done ‘More’ For The Border Than Anyone Else)
“The border wall money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money,” Biden said. “They didn’t. They wouldn’t. In the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated for. I can’t stop that.”
When asked by a reporter if he thinks the border wall works, all the president had to say was “no.”
At the section where the Biden administration will be building the border wall, federal authorities recorded about 245,000 illegal migrant encounters during the fiscal year 2023, the Wednesday filing shows.
The Biden administration has also been filling in gaps in the border wall throughout areas of Arizona. It was revealed in August that the Biden administration had been quietly “disposing” portions of the border wall from the Trump administration for months, actioning off parts that were removed.
From October 2022 to August, Border Patrol encountered more than 1.8 million illegal migrants. Through the same time period, the Border Patrol arrested 151 illegal migrants who appeared on the national terrorism watchlist.
As Border Patrol deals with a surge of illegal migrants, several Democrat-run cities have become overwhelmed with migrants, some lacking the appropriate shelter and resources to take the individuals in. Despite some action from the Biden administration, several leaders in Chicago and New York told the Daily Caller they feel as if the president has not responded to their calls for help.
“I’ve been raising the alarm for months, emphasizing that President Biden is asleep at the wheel when it comes to addressing the migrant crisis,” New York City Councilman Robert Holden told the Daily Caller. “New York City, with over 109,000 migrants in our system, was promised a liaison and has been met with silence; it’s clear the White House has abandoned us and effectively told us to drop dead. We’ll remember this.”