Washington Post : January 20, local time, after Biden took office, he immediately suspended the border wall between the United States and Mexico, a landmark infrastructure project built by the Trump administration to restrict the entry of illegal immigrants.
Biden issued a statement saying that federal agencies would develop plans within 60 days to redistribute the construction fund of the border wall and “restore, modify or terminate” parts that are still under construction.” My administration will no longer invest U.S. taxpayers’ money in the construction of a border wall.”
In 2019, Trump called a security crisis on the southern border, using the power of a “national emergency” to invest about $10 billion from the U.S. defense sector in the construction of the border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, which is one of the most expensive infrastructure construction projects in U.S. history.
Under U.S. law, the president can declare a state of emergency to Congress on the condition of explaining specific reasons. In a state of emergency, the U.S. Department of Defense can divert funds for civilian works to invest in other projects related to national defense and security.
According to CNN, so far, the Trump administration has completed the construction of a 453-mile wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, but the main result is to replace the original easy-break small barrier with a 30-foot-high steel guardrail.
According to CBP data, after Trump’s term, the truly new wall without borders in the past is only about 47 miles long.
Trump’s border wall has also not been effective in restricting illegal immigration.
According to CBP data, the number of immigrants detained at the U.S.-Mexico border increased significantly in 2018 and 2019, only decreasing in 2020.
According to the BBC, Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, believes that the decline in the number of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2020 is a natural result of the partial or complete closure of the borders of countries after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
