The Biden administration is still seizing land along the U.S. southern border for Donald Trump’s border wall despite announcing that he was not going to finish it.
The administration insists they’re in the midst of a “review of federal resources to build the wall” and are allowing Trump-era court cases to proceed, including land seizure cases. That review was supposed to be concluded 60 days after Biden’s inauguration — March 20. The president made the announcement of the wall cancellation with great fanfare and publicity. And yet land has continued to be seized.
“I’m … very, very disappointed in Joe Biden. I thought he was a man of his word but apparently, he’s not keeping his word,” Reynaldo “Rey” Anzaldua Cavazos, a member of the family whose land was taken, told Politico. “He said not one more foot of wall and no land forfeitures. We took him at his word and we want him to keep his word.”
Despite Biden’s promise to quickly reverse Trump’s immigration policies, he has yet to act on many of them — from failing to increase the cap on refugees to rescinding a ban on most migrants at the southern border. But fewer issues carry as much symbolic weight as the border wall. And his actions there threaten to further complicate his pledge to offer a kinder, gentler immigration system where everyone is welcome.
“They can have all the excuses they want but it’s real dicey to look at what they’re doing right now,” said a person who consults with the White House on immigration policy who has grown frustrated. “It’s a lot of stuff Trump was doing.”
Of course it’s “a lot of stuff Trump was doing.” Biden is continuing most of those policies because they work. The ideologues do not understand that we need some control at the border and Biden is hoping no one is watching while he quietly maintains Trump policies to deal with the crisis.
Biden is pulling a fast one on his radical open-borders supporters and they don’t even know it.
He was singing a different tune before the election. He told the media that he would not build another foot of the wall and the eminent domain cases that resulted from land seizures would be ended.
“End. Stop. Done. Over. Not going to do it. Withdraw the lawsuits. We’re out. We’re not going to confiscate the land,” Biden told NPR in August.
But Biden’s administration has not withdrawn from Trump court cases to seize land for the wall. It has even conceded that the wall could continue to be built or modified.
There’s a huge difference between using the wall as a political club to gain votes and portray Trump as a heartless monster and quite another to deal with the reality on the ground while Biden is president. That reality dictates some barrier is necessary to slow the human tidal wave and keep it from overwhelming border facilities and border towns.
It’s not a matter of ideology. It’s practicality that dictates what needs to be done to keep from losing total control of our border. And Biden, bowing to the inevitable, will continue to seize land and build the wall.
The Latino radicals will be displeased, but the media won’t cover the story much nor point out the nauseating hypocrisy in Biden’s decision.
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